Helping GG Care build its offer for people with dementia and their carers

In 2019, David Grey found himself in the position of being the primary carer for his elderly grandmother. 'Gran Gran', as he calls her, had not long been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Like so many dementia carers in the same position – more than half a million in England alone, according to NHS England – David needed help.

London-based David searched exhaustively for the right tools and tech that could help him manage his daily care routine for GG. Disappointed at the lack of solutions in the market, David decided to try and fill the gap in provision himself by creating a solution himself.

Based on his very real lived experience, in 2020 David founded GG Care as a care tech venture that would help not just GG but many other older people with dementia to live healthier, more independent lives. By harnessing the capabilities of assistive and smart home technology, the primary carer role of David and many more like him could be made easier.

During his research, David had identified that carers’ primary modes of communication and coordination left much to be desired. Many other carers had similar complaints of difficulties with time tracking, decision making and note keeping.

Care Companion, GG Care’s first tech product, is a voice-powered assistive app that allows care recipients to complete routine tasks by connecting to an Alexa device. Alexa also acts as a virtual care companion.

This harnessing of Alexa’s capabilities soon attracted attention, including from business website Forbes, and a £50,000 ‘inclusive innovation’ grant from Innovate UK followed.

David developed his thinking for new ways to support carers through technology, devising a new ‘Care Coordination’ app that would help carers to organise paid and unpaid support around a care recipient and request assistance for tasks.

To validate the app concept, he applied to participate in the 2024 Care Innovation Challenge, an annual event that fosters collaboration between innovators and care executives. It was there that he connected with Affinity Trust, a large non-profit social care provider with more than 30 years of experience in supporting people living with autism and other assessed needs.

Affinity Trust loved the Care Coordination idea and agreed to team up with GG Care to further develop the app and a care coordination service that would facilitate support planning, recommendations for assistive technology, identify community resources, and the coordination of paid and unpaid support, all within a human-centred and secure digital platform.

The GG Care team received one of the highest scores from the Care Innovation Challenge's judges, which included care commissioners, business leaders and people with lived experience. They presented and exhibited the solution at the Care Show in Birmingham this October.

Care Coordination app development

GG Care wanted its Care Coordination to:

• Improve the care experience for formal and informal carers
• Improve the independence of care recipients
• Ease existing pressures on organisations like the NHS and local authorities.

Despite good media coverage and grant support, like many impact ventures, social enterprises and non-profits, GG Care faces limited resources – in time, skills and investment – which has affected the pace of its development.

GG Care’s mission and challenge resonated with the Opencast team. Recently accredited as a purpose-driven B Corp, Opencast is committed to being a purpose-led business that makes a positive impact on society by “making life better through the power of people and technology”.

Opencast’s new social impact strategy has seen it shift from its previous approach of direct charitable grants and ad hoc team volunteering to a new ‘pro bono’ offer to impact-led organisations to provide user-centred design (UCD) and digital and technology services at no cost.

This year, Opencast has worked with a range of impact-led organisations including The Alnwick Garden, International Community Organisation of Sunderland (ICOS) and The Fore, in collaboration with the Tech for Good Alliance.

This autumn, GG Care became the latest beneficiary of the Opencast pro bono offer. Its support would ease the limitations on progress caused by limited resources by offering its consultants’ time and expertise at no cost to GG Care. UCD and software capabilities have helped GG Care to accelerate the development of its app.

GG Care’s initial need was a review of the current state of the Care Coordination app and the pitch it had developed for the Care Show presentation.

The agency was given access to 16 hours of work from each of four Opencast consultants, specialising in:

• content design
• interaction design
• service design
• software development.

For the duration of the project, GG Care would be able to steer the direction of the support based on its need – and Opencast agreed, staying committed to fitting in with what GG Care needed as the client, collaborating and understanding its knowledge and ways of working to add value fast.

Opencast also offered to support GG Care’s bid for further funding from Innovate UK by promising to partner with GG Care if the bid was successful.

David Grey spent two days working closely with Opencast senior software developer Francis O’Brien. Francis offered guidance on the limitations of GG Care’s tech stack, which was a combination of tools, frameworks and programming languages, and advised on potential future changes. As part of this work David was able to learn about database design concepts.

Opencast content designer Rachel McKinnie and senior interaction designer Ben Tilbrook gave GG Care feedback on the existing Care Coordination app through prototype screens. This introduced David to design systems and he was able to reflect on digital accessibility and user cognitive load.

Rachel and service designer Sonia Napolitano also reviewed David’s pitch for his care show presentation as part of the Open London Accelerator, helping him to focus the content of his presentation on the care show audience and implement the key principles of content design.

Opencast provided additional value by enabling David to start thinking beyond the app and think of Care Coordination as a service.

During the two days Sonia spent with David, they focused on brand strategy, business and sales models and defined the role that GG Care plays as an overarching brand for the Care Companion and Care Coordination products. Through collaborative sessions and visual tools, David was able to articulate the difference between the service and the app and start to explore user journeys and scenarios.