Member Article

This online care marketplace is going UK-wide and giving the gig economy a good name in the process

London-based online care marketplace, HomeTouch, is today (6 March) launching its live-in carer service nationwide, making it the largest provider of live-in services in the UK.

The Passion Capital-backed HealthTech business has become one of the market leaders in providing families with access to a large pool of pre-vetted care professionals, with a platform that takes its cues from the gig economy model of self-employed working.

Users can search through the platform’s available carers, filtering via attributes such as interests, expertise, language skills and the like, along with detailed profiles and client reviews.

Speaking to Bdaily prior to its nationwide roll-out, Dr Jamie Wilson, who is Founder and Chief Executive Officer at the Clerkenwell business, said the addition of 25,000 live-in care professionals on its platform would make it the largest and most comprehensive online provider of care professionals.

Primarily, the platform gives families and those in the sandwich generation, that is those in the 30s and 40s who currently care for younger children and their elderly parents simultaneously, more tailored options for the type of care their elderly relatives receive.

All carers are personally pre-vetted for criteria such as initiative, reliability and compassion, while checks are carried out to ensure suitable qualifications and criminal record checks.

At the same time, however, Dr Wilson explained that HomeTouch was aiming to empower care professionals by giving them ability to set their own rates and free them from the shackles of the prevailing agency model, which often sees carers getting by on precarious zero-hour contracts with poor take home pay.

While debate rages about the impact of the gig economy on workers’ rights and controversies over firms paying less than the minimum wage, HomeTouch seems a genuine outlier in that its workers are actually better paid, on average, than through current models.

According to Jamie, carers on the platform earn up to 75% above industry average pay, thanks to the ability to advertise their unique attributes and demonstrate their expertise through reviews from previous employers.

As we are increasingly seeing in the healthcare sector, HomeTouch is bringing innovations to match the changing expectations and requirements of the population who now expect digital options in every aspect of their lives, with care being no different.

“The ageing population is increasingly keen to stay in the comfort and familiarity of their own homes, rather than go into residential care,” explains Dr Wilson. “The traditional agency model for in-home care is outdated; consumers are embracing the ease and efficiency of online tools that they use in other areas of life to make informed decisions about the person who cares for their loved ones at home.”

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