Fixing the £5.5bn crisis in UK social care - one digital passport at a time
How one woman is pioneering a new digital, portable profile for care workers… and fixing the UK care system while she’s at it
Hi everyone, thanks for coming back to Customer Futures.
Each week I unpack the disruptive shifts around Empowerment Tech. Digital wallets, Personal AI and the future of the digital customer relationship.
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Customer Futures Meetup - London, 10th December
Are you curious about Personal AI, digital ID and digital wallets? Or are you already working on Empowerment Tech?
Join us on the 10th December for Christmas drinks and a catch-up about all things ET!
We’ll be at The Hoxton Hotel, Holborn (direction here) from 6pm.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Hi folks,
Another Customer Futures Conversation this week. It’s probably the most important digital ID story you haven’t yet heard. It blew me away.
Yes, it’s about digital identity. And yes, a ‘digital passport’.
But this one is about real lives. Not about hiring a car or getting a loan. It’s about a real market need and vulnerable people, not a shiny technology solution.
And it’s about one woman’s life’s work. Not just chasing the Next Big Thing or making millions.
This week, we dive into the world of care workers.
A world that almost all of us will have touched at some point. Maybe you’ve seen it close up with a poorly family member. Or you watched someone vulnerable receive care from the community.
And at some point in your life, you’ll be vulnerable too. You’ll need care. So who’s going to be there when it matters?
Meet Carly Rochester.
She’s not only solving problems across the UK care sector by matching qualified staff to work. She’s getting right in the middle of fixing a very broken care system.
With over 25 years of experience from the frontline, she’s probably one of the best placed people to help fix the UK care system. And fixing it she is.
Welcome to MePassport.
It was a privilege to spend 30 minutes with Carly to talk about her life’s work in care, and the startup she’s building to fix many of the day-to-day problems care workers face just trying to do their job.
We’re also joined by Jon Evans from Digidentity, the company providing some of the tech and ID checks behind the MePassport platform.
But this isn’t just about the human story of helping people with cancer. It’s about the £5.5Bn that the UK wastes hiring care workers we already have in the system. And the colossal waste of money being spent blocking hospital beds, because patients can’t be released back home fast enough.
Carly has even launched a website showing how these costs all add up: The Revolving Door of UK Care Staff.
£5.5bn.
It’s mad. And it needs to be fixed.
We had a brilliant discussion, and talked about:
A real patient problem, and the birth of MePassport (02:02)
The tech behind the scenes (09:52)
What’s in the Care Worker’s Passport (12:37)
The surprising thing about building tech in social care (18:57)
Why the care sector is so broken (24:27)
The real-world impact of MePassport (31:58)
You can find the full recording here.
It’s a real eye-opener.
If you know someone who might be interested in MePassport - or maybe someone who needs help right now - why not send them over to Carly and the MePassport team. They really can make a difference.
You can get in touch with Carly at www.mepassport.co.uk, and Jon at www.digidentity.eu. And as always, you can get in touch with me by replying to this email, and over at www.customerfutures.com.
Stay tuned for more episodes coming soon.
There’s never been a more important time to shape the future of being a digital care worker. So welcome back to the Customer Futures newsletter.
Wherever you are, whatever you are doing… stop, grab your headphones, and Let’s Go.
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