The Care Innovation Challenge, a hackathon-style creative weekend, returned on 2-3 July. Creative thinkers, entrepreneurs and experts from the sector, came together at Coventry University’s Technopark for two days of idea generation and prototype trialling.

Five finalist teams were selected to present their idea at The Care Show care event on 12-13 October at the NEC in Birmingham, where the winning team will receive £1,000 in prize money, media coverage and further mentoring to develop their idea. 

Team Care Tech Guide presented a well-developed idea focused on accelerating digital transformation in care. Team Chip’s idea was a cashless solution for adults with learning disabilities to support independent living. Team Fall Free presented a solution to prevent falls and fractures in older people. Team Myghty’s innovation is an app to foster employee recognition and teamworking to improve staff retention. Team Star offered the idea of local re-ablement and assessments with housing for people living with dementia.

Each of the semi-finalists receive mentoring and £500, as well as an invitation to meet minister of state for Care, Gillian Keegan, who commented, “The weekend looks amazing.  I’m really looking forward to meeting the five semi-finalists to hear more about their innovative ideas to reform.”

Professor Vic Rayner, chief executive of the National Care Forum said, “The energy in the room was extremely high, generating an explosion of ideas.  The teams then got down to the process of business planning and protoyping, supported by our amazing mentors.  There were so many great innovative approaches to social care being discussed it was a tough decision to pick the five teams to go through to the final at The Care Show in October.

“The journey for our finalists will continue, as we have more support planned to help accelerate their ideas.  We have a number of webinars planned between now and the final at The Care Show, access to helpful resources and further mentoring. I can’t wait to see how the ideas progress.”

The Challenge, hosted by the Care Innovation Hub (CIH), was established in 2018 to create a platform for exploration and innovation in the social care sector. The CIH is now run by the National Care Forum, which is dedicated to developing innovation in the social care and support sector.