Here’s a Hand

Scotland

2011

01-07-2013

Here’s a Hand aimed to be an innovative on-line service by using phone texts and email to allow older or disabled people to communicate with informal carers (family, friends or neighbours), but in a second time it was used also by formal carers.

The main driver was that some older or disabled people did not have an informal carer to assist them, but relied on paid carers.

 Care Recipients
 Informal carers
 Paid assistants
 Formal carers

Not available

 Independent Living
 Information and learning for carers
 Personal Support and Social Integration for carer
 Care coordination

Here's a Hand made it easier for informal carers to help by setting up a group to send messages by mobile phone text and email. Each person could decide what to offer and when and how to be contacted. Users’ emails were sent to every member of the group. These latter could then comment on the website or reply via email. Here’s a Hand users could request help, which the group then attempted to satisfy.

A mobile phone, internet and email

Public only

Other: please specify

Public service funding: Local Authorities

Public research funding: European and international funds for research, development and implementation of innovative initiatives

Other: please specify

Not applicable

Not applicable

The service was terminated in 2013 so there aren’t any future sustainability plans. The initiative’s organisers asked the Leith Agency for marketing advice, which is listed below.

1. Concentrate on helping the existing pilot groups to make the most of the service, while getting regular feedback, before expanding the service.
2. Help existing and strongly supported pilot groups to make the most of the service while getting regular feedback.

€ 10,000 - 50,000

28,806 EUR (Edinburgh City Council, 2012) for the start up.

 Authorities
 Private Care Sector
 Health and Social Care Systems
 Third Sector
 Private Companies

Not available

The third sector was represented by The Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (IRISS) which is a charitable organisation that strives to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Scotland’s social services.

 Informal Carers
 Health Professionals
 Social Care Professionals
 Privately-Hired Care Assistants (inc. Migrant Care Workers)
 Volunteers

By means of promotional “get to know us” events Here’s a hand professionals had the opportunity to meet people from different organisations from the city, to collect information from informal carers and to give the latter advice on how to use the service. Health and social care professionals could use Here’s a Hand not just to communicate with/on behalf of someone, but with each other if they assisted the same care recipient.

The professionals involved in Here’s a Hand belonged to the following organisations.

1. Private care providers:

• Social Innovation Camp who quickly brought together ideas, people and digital tools to build web-based solutions to social problems.
• Scotland Unlimited who through its core Awards programme annually supported hundreds of UK social entrepreneurs. In addition, this company advises, helps to network and offers practical support.

1. Third sector

• The Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (IRISS)

1. Private Companies:
   • The Melting pot which offered five core services:
   • Co-working and hot-desking facilities
   • Networking, skill development and community-building
   • Meeting and event space hire and services
   • Social Innovation Incubation Award
   • Consultancy Advice and bespoke presentations

Some carers, who provided the service were volunteers.

1,001 - 5,000

The exact number of users is 1.540.

The Leith Agency was hired to develop its promotional strategy. The promotional strategy was based on information days, emails, newsletters and “get to know us” events. In the latter, anyone, including informal carers, could try Here’s a Hand for free.

The service improved the quality of life of:

- Informal carers by allowing them to could reconcile care and work.

- Paid assistants by improving their skills.

- Older people by improving their health as a consequence.

(IRISS, 2011)

- Companies and the labour market, by helping informal carers reconcile work and caring tasks (IRISS, 2011)

It helped public authorities, the National Health System and social care services to save the costs of home caring and hospitalisation by effectively training informal carers (IRISS, 2011).

Strengths:

1. The service had a f user friendly blog

2. Any friend or family member could set up a group on the care recipient’s behalf.

3. Registration was simple.

4. An ordinary mobile phone was sufficient to send and receive requests.

5. The number of users increased (1540 visitors, 1219 new visits, with 20,84% of returning visitors in 2011 (IRISS, 2011))

6. The service was built using an inclusive approach. For example, carers were consulted for the blog name (IRISS,2011)

7. The service was a helpful tool to coordinate care.

8. Levels of commitment, by informal carers, were flexible.

9. The service could have helped prevent the risk of burn out among informal carers.

10. Messages sent among group members were private and secure.

11. Users decided which group members could invite people to join and who could send out requests.

Weaknesses:

1. As the blog was terminated there’s a scarcity of information and they all refer to the past.

Opportunities:

1. Health and social care professionals, following the same care recipient, could communicate with each other.
2. In 2011 Here’s a Hand was awarded funding from Edinburgh’s Innovation Fund which is part of the Change Fund for Reshaping Care for Older People.
3. The funding enabled the initiative to benefit users in Edinburgh aged 65 and over.
4. Moreover the service was given a Millenium Award by Scotland UnLtd to set up a social enterprise, which had funding via the Edinburgh Council from the European Union’s Open Innovation Project to develop the platform.
5. After its end, the service opened an open sources link (https://github.com/Heres-A-Hand/Heres-A-Hand-Web) where are described all steps to create another service similar to Here’s a hand.

Threats:

1. The service was not able to attract users.
2. There is the risk that other organisations will reproduce the same service so Here’s a Hand may not be restarted.

Even though Here’s A Hand shut down, in July 2013, anyone could recreate the service using its open source computer code (https://github.com/Heres-A-Hand/Heres-A-Hand-Web). The accessibility of users with different needs was guaranteed by the user friendly website and the possibility to send an email at heresahand.org.uk with any questions. These characteristics would have made the service easily transferable.

References:

Edinburgh City Council, Change Fund progress Report, 2012, available at http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/site/scripts/google_results.php?q=here%27s+a+hand+evaluation

IRISS, Here’s a Hand presentation (2011), available at http://forum.iriss.org.uk/2011/speaker/heres-hand (last access: October 2013)

Resources:

Here’s a Hand website, available at http://blog.heresahand.org.uk/ (last access: October 2013)

Here’s a hand open sources at https://github.com/Heres-A-Hand/Heres-A-Hand-Web

website: http://blog.heresahand.org.uk

Email: catherine@heresahand.org.uk,

Phone: 0044 (0)7407 617177

Contact Form: https://heresahand.org.uk/contact.php