WHO WE WORK WITH

Care and Share Associates

EPL is a key architect of the successful homecare social franchise, Care & Share Associates, with Guy Turnbull of EPL being a founding member and Director of Business Development.
CASA's mission is to 'democratise home-care in the UK – to greatly enhance the ‘social enterprise take’ of the UK’s Health and Social  Care market through robust competition with the private sector, and close collaboration with the public sector.  This will be achieved through the replication of successful social enterprise models working within the health and social care sector.’'

CASA is the UK's leading employee owned homecare social enterprise, and, with its founder organisation Sunderland Home Care Associates (SHCA), was Social Enterprise Of The Year, 2006.  With 4 CASA units in operation, and providing over 7000 hours of care per week, CASA is viewed by the Department of Health and others as a trail-blazer in health/homecare social enterprise franchising and replication.

The market for quality home care services is set to expand significantly, for both economic and demographic reasons – the vast majority of commentators and forecasters agree that, as people are living longer, coupled with the fact that informal support structures have become less prevalent (for a whole range of social, economic and cultural factors), the pressure on the Care Sector is set to increase.  In addition, an ageing population not only means more demand for care, but also increased pensions pressures.  It has also been recognised by all mainstream political parties, policy forums, and Voluntary Sector groups, that the vast majority of people want to stay in their own homes for as long as is practicable.  Finally, spiralling costs of both hospital and residential care, and increased pressure on Public Sector health and social care budgets, mean further demand for increasingly complex homecare services.

Given this market context, players in the social enterprise homecare sector, principally the award winning and employee owned Sunderland Home Care Associates, established Care & Share Associates (CASA) in 2004 in order to democratise this growing market.

CASA is itself a company limited by guarantee.  The precise detail of the legal structure for each CASA Unit depends in some part on the wishes of the prospective host organisation.  A full set on memorandum and articles of association are only drafted once detailed discussions have taken place - they however feature:

    Majority employee ownership, with the emphasis of the development phase being focussed   upon ensuring ownership and control being passed to HCA based employees

    A minority stake-holding by the hub, under 10%, but significant enough to protect the original values of SHCA and Care & Share Associates Limited.

    CASA has also established a ‘panel’ whereby all units get the chance to share experiences, get involved in training and professional development, and of course to have some fun!  The Panel also has the function of electing two of its own to represent the units on CASA’s Board of Directors.  The Panel is the way in which the CASA Group really articulates its voice to policy makers and the outside world – to become the democratising force of the home-care sector.
   
Success Factors

Strong & entrepreneurial management team
Proven business model and track record
Better Business Model.  Incentivised Stakeholder staff results in:
    Better pay;
    Better terms and conditions;
    Increased investment in training;
    Lower staff turnover – an average of 3% to 5% across SHCA and the CASA replication units, as opposed to 30% in the Private Sector.  Such a low staff turnover leads to improved continuity and quality of care;

A commitment to local recruitment and training adds to the stock of care-workers, and therefore public sector ‘buy-in’;
Service re-design;
Individual ownership of shares means ‘owners’ working at the coal face;
Wealth created is likely to be spent in the community.  This contributes to a holistic approach to well being, in that it addresses the issue that poverty and health are intrinsically linked.
Developed relationship with financiers
A ‘no nonsense’ prospectus, business manual and development methodology 

Finance
Core funding for CASA in its early stages was provided by a European EQUAL funded project called INSPIRE, while each new business requires an initial investment of around £90,000 from local funders and a commitment from the local authority to purchase a specified number of hours once the company is established.  In addition CASA has an ongoing relationship with Co-operative and Community Finance, a social finance provider, who have made loan agreements to each new unit to contribute towards working capital. 

Future
The future for CASA is exciting.  Two new CASA units are planned to come on stream in 2009.  In addition, the existing units are involved in a number of diversification activities designed to provide self directed quality support to people with complex needs, in particular learning disabilities.  Such activity will draw heavily upon the work of one of our other strategic partners, Red Initiatives CIC.

Contacts
Dr Guy Turnbull
Director, Business Development
E: guy.turnbull@economicpartnerships.com
W: www.casaltd.com

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