I am a firm believer in the power of technology to do good for the world. In the earlier days of the web, when you could go on The Hunger Site and click a button to feed somebody who was hungry, I started to get excited about the possibilities this brave new world could lead us to, and that excitement has never really waned.
However, that is not to say that every innovation is a great move for the world. Just because something is shiny and new and does something we’ve never seen before does not mean it is a good thing. Sometimes, someone has an idea with good intentions, but the practicality does not work out. And sometimes, the call of money leads to poor decision making or corner cutting.
Some new disruptors in the tech world are exciting, some are bewildering, and some are downright dangerous. And this, I fear, could be the road ahead for CeraFlex, a new service that has been dubbed the “Uber for carers”. Part of the company Cera, which has bought several nursing homes, CeraFlex pledges that it will be able to send carers to disabled or elderly people within 30 minutes of them calling for one.
At first glance, this might seem like a good plan. That somebody who may not always know when they will need an assistant, but sometimes needs help to have their bath or cook their lunch, could quickly let the company know that they need some help and, within half an hour, have somebody who can help knock on their door.
CeraFlex says that the process would go something like this:
- A person approaches CeraFlex and undergoes a specialist assessment by a registered nurse, who will help to determine how much help somebody needs and whether they are suitable for the service
- Following approval by the nurse, the service user will be able to look through a list of carers and choose one, summoning them to arrive within half an hour of the call being placed.
What having disability care is really like
When I have had personal assistants, I have recruited them myself, going through an application process and selecting the person who suited me best. They have had employment rights, such as holiday pay, and we have had set hours each week when we worked together. They knew me, and I knew them, and this system worked well. They knew how many hours’ work to expect so that they could fit it around their other commitments. It has worked well.
Had it not been so well planned and implemented, both myself and my assistants could have found ourselves in trouble. Both of us could be vulnerable in this arrangement in different ways, and having contracts and verbal agreements and criminal records checks in place has helped to protect us both.
The prospect of having a highly flexible service does sound appealing, but potentially having a different carer every day or every week would be highly stressful for me. This is somebody who is going to come into my home – and other people need personal care, such as help on the toilet or in the shower, which is even more vulnerable than that. I want this to be a person I know and trust. I want to have seen their criminal records check myself, and I want to know that my confidentiality will be abided by.
Throughout CeraFlex’s website, I struggled to find any information on personal safety. There was no mention that their carers would have any kind of background check, even references from previous employers, so from a service user’s point of view, the potential for abuse is high.
This is also a very expensive service, relatively speaking. CeraFlex says that its workers will only do 30 minutes’ work at a time, and that the fee per visit is £15. This equates to £30 per hour, significantly more than CeraFlex’s carers – or any self-employed or employed carers – receive.
The other side of the coin
From the carers’ point of view, there are also problems. I have no objection to self-employment in general – I am self-employed myself – but ‘gig economy’ schemes like this offer few protections and little to no promise of paid work ever happening. The carers’ personal safety must also be taken into account – they are being asked to go into strangers’ homes with possibly no background information about whether that person presents with challenging or abusive behaviours, and they are expected to deal with whatever they find.
Paid carers typically earn minimum wage, while the agencies that hire them take in considerably more than that. They are often hired from a pool of people who may be new to the country or have minimum work experience or are very young. They can be exploited and, with a system like this, risk hanging around for work when none is available.
Innovating in the disability arena could be exciting, but only if it is not cutting corners in a way that leaves its staff and service users vulnerable. Perhaps the moniker “Uber for carers” does the service no favours, because of the drama that Uber has been caught up in on workers’ rights and passenger safety, but CeraFlex and any competitors that may arise must look carefully at how they run their service in a socially responsible way that treats its workers and users with the utmost of respect and pays attention to their rights at every point in the customer journey.
Photo: agilemktg1/Creative Commons