1st April 2021
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‘Dragon’s Den’ challenge for firms to help support domiciliary care
Companies invited to bid for £100k funding
Companies are being invited to join a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style challenge to bid for funding of up to £100,000.
The challenge has been issued to firms that produce a product or provide a service that supports domiciliary care staff.
To be successful bidders will have to provide evidence they can make a measurable impact on the workforce in the areas of:
- supply
- skills
- leadership
- new ways of working
- new roles.
This could include impact on the number of domiciliary care workers, satisfaction levels, sickness absence, wellbeing, turnover rates, skills and confidence, leadership, productivity, diversity and inclusion.
The scheme has been launched by the West of England Academic Health Service Network (AHSN), South West AHSN and Health Education England.
The Domiciliary Care Workforce ‘find an innovator’ challenge applies to products and services already up and running, not those currently in the research and development stage.
“When we have selected innovations we will look for hosts in the South West of England. These hosts could be NHS and/or domiciliary social care providers (large, small, micro-providers) and they can register an interest now.” Roger McDermott, Senior Programme Manager, West of England AHSN
The initiative comes against a backdrop of a UK domiciliary care workforce under huge pressure, made even worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the pandemic domiciliary social care providers were reporting a 46% staff turnover rate in the South West.
Successful bidders will see their product, service, technology, process, way of working or toolkit in use across the West and South West of England, including Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Bristol, North East Somerset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall/Isles of Scilly.
Organisers have not decided how many innovations will be selected. This will depend on the quality of proposals against agreed criteria. The budget will be used to support up to four bidders depending on costs.
The support on offer includes:
- hosting in social and health care providers for a 12 month period
- following evaluation over the 12 months, organisers will make a recommendation on suitability for further scaling at regional and national level
- a project manager will help find a host(s) and co-ordinate the innovator, host, evaluator and other stakeholders.
The call for innovation closes at 5pm on Monday May 31. Potential hosts are also invited to register their interest.
For more information including details of live Q & A sessions for potential applicants during April and May click here
