A new approach to solve care sector challenges - Care Marketplace
During my study at Imperial I came to conclusion there are three main challenges of the adult social care sector. They are all inter related and therefore if we really wanted to create an impact we needed to design a service that solved for these three challenges simultaneously - the idea of CareMarketplace was born !
Let’s talk about these three sector challenges first - they are :
1. Affordability impacting care users and their families exacerbated by the cost of living crisis and inflation
2. Lack of care worker retention in the sector because of low wages, zero hour contracts, and a lack of stability in career coupled with a limited access to market and growth opportunities because of a highly fragmented services sector
3. Agencies suffering from low margins, not finding trained work force, not able to invest in the workforce either and thus unable to deliver quality services and as a result, sooner or later, either leading towards bankruptcy, or dropping in CQC rating.
This is a vicious cycle.
Care Marketplace’s unique workflow caters to the needs of everyone across the sector and therefore we offer solutions that benefit all stakeholders.
This is how :
1. Care Seekers - Our services create a potential for a minimum 15% and in some cases upto 30% reduction in cost the customers are currently paying for their care. How ? Because we do not charge any mark up on care worker salary. It’s that simple. All prices offered on our platform have 0% mark up applied on them. Buying care service through Care Marketplace is flexible. Our customers choose the contract model they want, negotiate their own rates with providers, and award contracts directly to the vendor of their preference.
2. Care Workers - We open the entire market to the care workers so they can engage customers, present their profile, their expertise and make offers without the need of having an intermediary. Workers do their own marketing and find their own work which drives independence. We are not only increasing job opportunities for the workers but also improving their net salary because we do not mark it up. It also allows workers to plan their activities themselves, taking control of their own destiny by generating more income from their work, able to invest & grow and therefore stay longer in the sector. Retention of care workers while gaining experience within the sector gives better access to care for everyone.
3. Agencies - We are addressing the challenge of low margins head on and offering a partnership model to agencies where they can collaborate, have access to a shared pool of care worker resources to fill gaps in shifts and tackle emergencies and unplanned leaves. This model is specifically suited for agencies who offer managed care services and are regulated by CQC which are also the ones struggling with low margins due to overheads but unable to increase prices due to reliance on councils awarding work. Our collaboration model is a win win because it will allow them to retain customers who will benefit from a continuity in their care delivery. Our platform brings a flexible way to manage existing resources & deploying them more efficiently to generate more care work without increasing the cost of care. By optimising resource allocation agencies reduce their cost and generate better margins while focusing on the fully managed care, eliminating gaps in emergency cases, enhancing customer care quality and improving their CQC rating which further allows them to attract more customers and be more profitable and competitive.
This is the virtuous cycle.
All in all we see great potential in Care Marketplace to unlock new material opportunities and we are inviting all of you to visit us on Stand B23 at Care Show to engage further.
Let’s convert this conversation into real meaningful action for the benefit of everyone.
