Could the digitisation of social care pave the way for a better NHS?
Jennifer Sieg meets Max Parmentier, founder of tech start-up Birdie, to discuss what he sees as the solution to fixing the NHS
With record-breaking waiting times, persistent staff shortages and a rapidly-ageing population, Britain’s NHS is buckling under a productivity crisis.
The system, as it stands, is struggling – and the debate over what should or can be done to fix it is still ongoing.
Will the knight and shining armour tasked with saving the NHS be revealed within a long-awaited digital transformation?
Will more government funding, like the £22bn announced in last month’s Budget, really be enough to create the amount of productivity gains needed for change?
These are the questions Brits are encouraged to ask themselves, even more so now that the government launched a public consultation to invite new and shared ideas that might “help fix our NHS”.
Whatever the long-term solution turns out to be, however, entrepreneur Max Parmentier urges the country to be cautious about “fuelling a leaking bucket.”
One step (and market) at a time
Parmentier, 42, co-founded his homecare technology company Birdie in 2017 with the belief that the NHS’ lifeline can be found within “the community” in terms of efficient at-home healthcare services.
“It’s a very fascinating market, quite big, growing very fast, very much under the radar,” Parmentier says.
“We call it social care, which is always the underdog compared to healthcare – in terms of budget, in terms of agenda, in terms of representation – but yet, it’s the future, in our view, of the healthcare system.”
We call it social care, which is always the underdog compared to healthcare – in terms of budget, in terms of agenda, in terms of representation – but yet, it’s the future, in our view, of the healthcare system.
Birdie works by providing a range of homecare providers with digital services that transform their outdated operating systems, whether that be to help streamline medication reports, scheduling or invoicing, which in turn ensures a “full system” of efficiency across a business.
“When we thought about it, it was obvious that the future of healthcare was in the community… [and] we have to bring it where patients live,” Parmentier says.
From January to March of this year, 96,121 out of 103,843 available NHS hospital beds were occupied – a rate much higher than the national recommended guidance.
In order to make home care as efficient and affordable as possible, which in turn alleviates the pain of unnecessary bed occupancies, Parmentier believes more needs to be done for those who are providing such services.
“We realised it was a fragmented private market [with] thousands of mom and pop shops — small home care organisations — delivering all types of care,” Parmentier says.
“These folks are incredibly committed, but they really lack the tools to work as efficiently as possible.”
Since January of this year, the B-Corp certified software partner has supported over 23m home care visits – a 40 per cent increase from the year prior – averaging more than 131,000 visits per day.
It’s a momentum Parmentier says will only continue, especially as studies continue to highlight how the industry is “unprepared” for the needs of an ageing population.
According to a recent report by the charity Centre for Aging Better, more than one in five people in the UK will be aged over 65 in just 10 years time.
“About 60 per cent of healthcare costs are spent on the elderly and these costs are really increasing year-on-year, because the needs are increasing year-on-year,” Parmentier says.
‘Fuelling a leaking bucket’
Instead of funnelling more government funding into a “system that’s not optimal,” Parmentier says there needs to be a shift in focus across the board.
That could begin with a new way of thinking about healthcare and social care as one, he says, or by creating an “ambitious reform” plan for social care overall.
“This tension that we feel in the UK is similar in other countries, but particularly prominent in the UK for the very reason that we’ve arbitrarily designed budgets in a way where we have this dichotomy between healthcare and social care,” Parmentier says.
He adds: “By the virtue of having designed it as such, you basically always have this view of social care being the underdog, because the NHS is the pride of the UK.
“It [the NHS] is also the first point of care, it’s also acute care, leading us to basically keep fueling a leaking bucket.”
What’s next?
With a lack of reform and now the most recent hike in minimum wage and employers’ national insurance contributions, Parmentier says he has found himself in some difficult conversations.
“I have conversations now every day with care providers telling me the squeeze is such that we don’t know whether we’re going to be able to survive,” he says.
However, despite the challenges facing the healthcare industry and social care market overall, Parmentier seems rather confident that the time for change will come.
“I think there’s a real appetite from the government and the DHSC [Department of Health and Social Care] to really come with an ambitious social care plan, but it’s going to take a little longer,” he says.
“There’s probably two, three years here, waiting time to actually come with a fundamental reform of social care that will help anyone.”
At the end of the day, Parmentier says it’s the small steps being taken in the growing health-tech community that will be what keeps things ticking forward in the meantime.
“This is short term… but you could really lower hospital admission rates, lower the healthcare costs, and extend the life in healthier conditions for these patients for many years, which is really what we’re trying to do,” he adds.
CV
Name: Max Parmentier
Company: Birdie
Founded: 2017
Staff: 140 UK employees
Title: CEO and Co-Founder
Age: 42
Born: Belgium
Lives: London, UK
Studied: Master in Economic Policy, Columbia University, USA; Master in Management and Engineering, Louvain School of Management, Belgium
Talents: Weird jokes, mountaineering & climbing, impro, economic policy
Motto: “Worry less about who you want to be and more about what you want to do” (Obama)
Most known for: Escaping a rebel attack in Northern Uganda
First ambition: UN Secretary General, then beach bar tender
Favourite book: “War and Peace”
Best piece of advice: “Your job is to make decisions fast, 50% of them will be wrong and that’s fine”