The Health Foundation: Tech for Better Care
Overview
The Health Foundation has launched an exciting new £2m programme which will explore the potential for using technology to enable care at home and in the community.
Funding available to care providers in the UK to explore the potential for using technology to enable care at home and in the community.
They are offering up to £30,000 funding to six teams from care providers across the UK, for the first phase of our 18-month programme.
Background
The care system across the UK is under immense pressure, resulting in care that’s falling short of expectations for staff, carers (paid and unpaid) and care recipients.
New approaches to care are needed, and with that an opportunity to think more long-term about the kind of care that we want in the future: care that puts the recipients’ needs at the centre; care that focuses on relationships rather than transactions; and care that’s proactive rather than reactive. Technology is an exciting enabler to making this happen.
Finding the time and resource to make progress on ideas is challenging, especially given the current pressures on time, resource, and capacity. Which is why the Health Foundation has developed the new Tech for Better Care funding programme.
Aim of the Programme
They have launched an exciting new £2m programme which will explore the potential for using technology to enable care at home and in the community.
The Tech for Better Care programme will support up to six teams from across the UK over 18 months to develop, test and pilot care that focuses on the caring and enabling relationships needed between those who deliver and those who receive care, and that is proactive in supporting people to live a better and more independent life where possible.
The programme will support teams through a three-phase innovation process:
- Phase 1: Explore opportunities and develop ideas
- Phase 2: Test and refine ideas
- Phase 3: Pilot of idea(s)
Innovations alone will not address the challenges facing social care, but by giving teams the resource and support to innovate, our aim is to not only get promising new ideas off the ground that have the potential to be adopted by others in the future, but to demonstrate that a new way of delivering relational and proactive care by making the most of technology, is possible.
Funding Levels
A total of £2 million is available for this programme.
Care providers can apply for funding of up to £30,000 to participate in phase 1 of the programme, and then the most promising ideas will progress to phase 2 and phase 3.
Who can apply
Applications must be led by an organisation that is responsible for delivering care at home, in a residential setting or in the community. Care providers can be:
- NHS organisations
- Community interest companies
- Charities
- Social enterprises
- Local authorities
- Independent private providers.
Organisations should be UK-based, and the Foundation welcome applications from England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
Eligible Expenditure
This programme is for care providers that want to use the opportunity of funding and practical support to take a seed of an idea and develop it, test it, improve it, and then pilot it.
The following are the types of expenditure the Programme would expect to fund (this list is not exhaustive):
- Backfill costs for leadership and clinical time spent on the programme
- Honoraria for patient and public involvement
- Project management for the duration of the funding period
- Administrative support
- Supply of technical expertise from technology partners and organisations
- Cost of technology development that is part of this programme
- Team meeting costs, including room hire and catering where appropriate
- Backfill costs for staff (clinical and non-clinical) attending relevant training or workshops
- Communication materials and associated staff time required to promote the project
- Workshops, learning events and team development.