Social Care Innovation Programme New to Market Products

Good infection control has always been a fundamental element of high-quality care in care settings. However, the COVID pandemic has reinforced the importance of infection control to enhance the safety of service users and staff. We are seeking proposals for new-to-market infection control technologies that can support the provision of safe residential care.

Within both residential care and domiciliary care settings, falls can have a substantial impact on the health and wellbeing of service users. There are examples of technologies being used to mitigate falls (notably through wearable or environmental falls detectors).

The COVID pandemic has brought into sharp focus some of the challenges of maintaining communication with recipients of care in a time when face-to-face interaction can be limited. In particular, providers have had to develop new approaches to facilitating remote communication between care home residents and their family/friends, utilising platforms such as Zoom and FaceTime. For service users in their own home, limitations on face-to-face visits have exacerbated social isolation and loneliness.

CQC inspections are a critical mechanism for ensuring the quality of social care services and enhancing the wellbeing of service users. From an organisational perspective, they also support ongoing quality enhancement and can support the competitiveness and sustainability of social care providers. There are systems available that support organisational preparation for CQC inspections, we believe that there remains a gap in the market for systems that underpin quality and evidence required.

Effective medication management is a critical element of social care, whether related to safer medication administration in care settings or promoting safe and effective administration and recording of medication by care organisation in a person’s own home.