Legal & General Retirement Retail back healthcare startup to tackle UK ‘bed-blocking’ crisis

Care Sourcer is the first UK comparison and matching site for older people care - the innovative service enables anyone to make a simple enquiry via www.caresourcer.com and receive offers from care providers who have immediate availability. Care Sourcer charges the care provider a small fee for the matching service, and there is no charge to the person making the request. Care Sourcer can be used by private individuals, GPs, social workers, or anyone else who needs to find care for an older person.

With this investment, Care Sourcer aims to directly tackle the NHS’s ‘bed-blocking’ crisis, a major issue the organisation faces 70 years on from its creation. NHS England alone reported over 150,000 Delayed Transfer of Care days in 2017-18, which is the number of days that someone who is medically fit for discharge is still occupying a bed¹. These delays, also known as “delayed discharge”, cost NHS England £3bn annually, or £8m per day, and also force the NHS to cancel operations and increase waiting times in A&E².  Care Sourcer’s care matching technology can address nearly half (47%) of these delayed discharge cases by matching people with care homes or care at home providers within 48 hours — a staggering potential saving to the NHS.

¹ Monthly delayed transfers of care data, England, March 2018

² The Lord Darzi Review of Health and Care Interim Report, April 2018

• Care Sourcer is the UK’s first care and comparison matching site. Anyone can request care for older people at www.caresourcer.com and will receive bespoke offers from local care providers within 48 hours.
• Care Sourcer was founded in Edinburgh in 2016 by Andrew McGinley, CEO and Andrew Parfery, CCO. Both founders ran successful care businesses and decided to create Care Sourcer after seeing firsthand the growing unmet need for care.
• Care Sourcer is currently available in London, Edinburgh and Gloucester and will roll out nationwide throughout the year as they expand their network of providers, invest in their technology platform and expand their team of care experts and technologists.
• In 2017, Care Sourcer completed its first external seed investment round, raising £500,000 from UK venture capital firms Accelerated Digital Ventures and BGF Ventures. It was the first investment in a Scottish company by both investors.
• In 2017, Care Sourcer won a nationwide Small Business Research Initiative contract worth £100,000 to tackle delayed discharge with NHS England. After a successful trial, NHS England awarded a further £757,000 to Care Sourcer to expand their work with NHS bodies across the country.