Tech transforms care
PERSON Centred Software (PCS), whose super-simple monitoring and planning technology helps transform services in UK care homes, will boost its overseas expansion with a £2 million investment raise this summer.
A leader in scalable, automated management systems for the social care sector, the family business plans to move into non-English speaking territories after roll-outs in Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands.
This follows increasing connectivity at home, most recently in remote spots in Scotland where PCS is working with NHS Highland.
The new backing will be Surreybased PCS’s first exter- nal one since brothers Jonathan and Simon Papworth launched the company in 2013. It now employs 56 and is forecasting a £12.74 million turnover for the coming year.
The Papworths hoped to solve problems they had seen firsthand in a sector faced with growing demand from an ageing population, recruitment shortages and no mobile product innovation to drive efficiency.
“Products were top down, not for those actually using the technology,” says co-director Jonathan, pictured.
“In social care the primary objective is improving the lives of everyone being cared for. Our solution is for those providing the care as well. “Measuring happiness is the core of our technology and the transparency is a deterrent to bad practice.”
PCS’s icon-driven technology was the breakthrough, creating software that can be used by anyone whatever their first language, computer literacy or reading ability.
“We have a vast number of measurement points allowing carers to fully analyse the care given,” explains Jonathan. “Our Mobile Care Monitoring is the only product that can do that and is best placed to analyse how care can be changed to improve outcomes. Using icons and scores gives a better indication of an individual’s requirement, cuts down the risk of errors and the evidence is preserved in one portal.
“Carers can help residents and file details at the same time without interruption. With that contemporaneous note taking, staff can make on average over 50 notes per resident per day.
“We can instal within a month and our training team offers hand-held guidance.”
The system is designed so carers can work on or offline, family members can use a Relatives Gateway to keep up to date and share messages and information can be pooled with ambulance and hospital staff.
In the UK there are more than 2,000 PCS care home customers, with clients ranging from family-run residential homes to nursing ones and large care groups.
Its ambition is to integrate further with the NHS but it has taken the pandemic to change a sector attached to paper. “Managers had to use Zoom and now the world is coming to us,” says Jonathan.
‘Our training team offers hand-held guidance’