PwC Pit Stop: Creating a Virtual Care Home

The Digital Catapult wants to hear from small and medium sized businesses interested in presenting and co-developing innovative approaches or technology solutions applicable to creating an elderly wellness service.

Elderly wellness is one of the biggest demographically driven challenges we’re facing as a society. With people living longer and birth rates falling, the average age of the population is steadily rising. Today, around 10 million people in the UK are over 65 years of age, with projections for 5.5 million more by 2030. Since the forecasted increase in the UK population is concentrated in older age bands, we need to face the economic reality of supporting more people, paid for by a smaller active workforce.

Further industry pressures also contribute to the need to find changes to the current operating model. Margins have traditionally been low in residential care and are coming under further pressure as the living wage is introduced. A shortage of qualified staff is another major, enduring operational challenge.

There are also social issues to be considered. With loss of a partner, reduction in social connections and fear of loneliness among the top concerns listed by the Centre for Ageing Better, finding new ways to improve mental wellbeing is equally important.

As the world’s largest professional services firm, with a long history of helping clients in both public and private healthcare, PwC is looking to design a rapidly implementable and scalable solution to help address the economic and social challenges faced.

How can I get involved?

In a series of collaborative workshops, this Pit Stop will assemble an exemplary supplier ecosystem to look at how new technologies – designed to monitor both physical and mental wellbeing – can be utilised to deliver a more efficient and effective wellness service to the elderly. Specifically, PwC is exploring the idea of a ‘Virtual Care at Home’. By monitoring patients in their home, the burden on healthcare professionals will be reduced and patients can be kept out of hospital and care homes for longer.

We are looking to explore use cases and pilots with companies that have immediately deployable solution. This could include: applications, monitoring technologies, networking solutions, data platforms, as well as end to end solutions. We are also interested to hear how the data collected can better drive interventions to reduce the need for costly face to face human interaction and improve the physical and mental wellness of the consumer.

At the end of the one and half days, we would like to have identified potential partners to work with on a Proof of Concept and go to market strategy.