At McClarrons, in addition to helping our care clients manage risk through insurance, we’re always on the look-out for other ways to help make our customers’ lives easier. That’s why we’ve partnered with OnCare – a company who make care management software for domiciliary care providers that helps with everything from scheduling through to reporting and invoicing, to try and make care delivery easier across the board.
We recently caught up with Alistair Cohen, CEO of OnCare, to find out more about the company, the team, and how it all works.
Alistair, how did OnCare start?
OnCare came from personal experience of visiting care agencies, seeing the amount of admin that care workers had to deal with, and being surprised that in the current technological age, pen and paper was still the main way that care records were kept. I spoke to care providers who wanted to save money and get a better view of their business; care workers who wanted less paperwork and more time with their clients; and families who wanted more transparency over how care was being delivered to their loved ones. To me, the solution was obvious – replace costly and time-consuming paper-based processes with a simple app for care workers, that lets them complete all their reporting quickly and that also keeps Office Staff and clients’ family in the loop about what’s going on. And that’s where OnCare came from – I raised some money to start the company and get some employees on board, and we’ve been growing the product and the team ever since.
Tell me a little more about the team?
I made sure to hire a mix of people with both technology and care backgrounds. Myself and my Chief Technology Officer James are from a tech and design background – knowing how to build robust tools for businesses to make sure they don’t let our customers down, and are super easy to use for non-techy people. Everyone else in the team has a connection to care in some way. Our Sales Director James is a registered carer himself; our Junior Developer Angela worked in the NHS and as a Care Worker in a previous role; our designer Arun organises and manages care within his own family; and our Implementation Lead Isabela was a Care Coordinator at a high-end care agency in Kensington prior to joining OnCare. We’re all unified by one clear objective, which is to make the best tools we can for our customers to make care delivery as easy as possible (and have a little fun as a team along the way – see our Twitter or Instagram feeds).
What does the software do?
OnCare is still relatively young as a company, so we have much more coming down the line but even so, we wanted to create a suite of tools that helps care providers to cover the vast majority of what they’ll need to run their business day-to-day. To that end, we’ve created a range of tools – from our scheduling tools through to our reporting tools – that help domiciliary care agencies to keep their data secure (and GDPR compliant), give the CQC all that they need when they stop by for inspections, and help to make sure the quality of care is the best it can be – even down to sending birthday reminders so a client’s birthday is never missed or forgotten. Rather than list out all the features we offer, our team is always available to give a demo to anyone that wants to find out more.
How have your customers found using it?
We’ve had some amazing stories from our customers. We’ve heard that we saved one care worker 20 minutes of admin time the very first day ever using our app; care workers are communicating with each other far better by being able to see each other’s notes and not having to worry about spelling or handwriting, which has picked up on key words like ‘GP visit’ or ‘Ambulance’; and one agency even landed two new clients by being able to offer them the text message updates via OnCare. However, one of my proudest moments was being invited to our first customer wedding! One agency we support, run by a couple, were finding their time and relationship stretched by constantly having to chase up their care workers, and find out what had happened with clients – their business was taking over their lives. Once they found OnCare, they, in their words, “got their weekends back”, which refreshed their relationship so when Ian proposed to Vickie, Team OnCare were also extended an invite to the wedding. It makes me immensely proud to be such a big part of peoples’ lives like that – I can’t imagine that happening at any other company I’ve worked for.
What does the future look like for OnCare?
Essentially, we want to keep making care easier wherever possible. Next for us will be modules for care providers to help them manage medication and assessments more easily; and then we’ll move on to solving more problems for the families who want to search and find care providers in a certain area, which should drive more customers through to those providers. We also want to help with care workers and clients giving feedback to their care provider more easily but, in essence, just keep trying to knock out problems for care providers, care workers, clients, and their families wherever they crop up.
We’re proud to be working with a partner like OnCare, who are trying to help care providers whilst not charging the world for their software tools, and it’s great to learn more about how they came to be.
Remember, as a McClarrons customer you have exclusive access to the OnCare system for just £40.00 per location (office) per month. To find out more about OnCare, visit www.weareoncare.com. Alternatively, if you’re interested in setting your business up with OnCare, email McClarrons’ Head of Care, Jonathan Copley, at jonathan.copley@networkportfolio.co.uk/mcclarroninsurance.com, who will be able to assist.
