Care receivers can be paired with carer based on religious understanding, cultural food, languages, hair and grooming, holidays etc thanks to AI technology

Maaha Suleiman, social entrepreneur and founder of Care Matched spent the pandemic creating a vital new resource and tool for the care sector from her home in Tower Hamlets.

She is a young, black Muslim woman on a mission to innovate the social care sector as during her Global Health & Social Medicine degree she spotted a big gap in the market.

She has developed a world-first app which matches care workers with care receivers using AI technology to deliver culturally-appropriate care so that care receivers can age more comfortably and live a higher quality of life.

Care workers are paired with care receivers based on life experiences, skills, religious understanding, cultural food, languages, hair and grooming, special holidays such as Eid, Diwali, Christmas, Hanukkah and much more.

According to the 2011 Census, 13% of the UK population identified as belonging to an ethnic minority group and this figure grew to 14.4% from the 2020 Census (CommonsLibrary)* Also, one-fifth of the UK population was aged 65 and over and this increased by 23% in the recent decade. Despite this, until now, there have been no businesses who specialise in culturally matched care (CommonsLibrary).**

Care Matched has just finalised the software development for the application, has finalised beta testing with leading London council, and the launch date is planned for 25th January 2022.

Care organisations and councils use a bespoke PaaS (platform as a service) tech platform. Below is a short summary of the process:

Care organisation signs up to Care Matched
Care workers will set up their profile (fill in experiences, skills, religious understanding, languages, hair and grooming and more)
Care receiver will set up their profile (fill in the questionnaire regarding cultural and special requests)
Care receiver connects with their desired care worker
Both care workers and care receivers can rate their experience and provide feedback
Ms Suleiman says:

“I am delighted to have worked with multiple care sector and charitable organisations, including a London council, Care Quality Commission, Care Innovation Hub and Unltd to name just a few. The organisations have been key in developing our Care Matched technology, which will have a huge impact on the care sector”

A senior member of the Care Quality Commission commented:

“Care matched is very relevant in addressing Regulation 9 and Regulation 10 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, by providing this culturally-appropriate matching technology to care organisations, Care Matched is ensuring that vulnerable people are receiving the personalised care they’re entitled to and live out the rest of their years with dignity”

An executive level social care commissioner says:

“Person centred and user-friendly tech solutions are increasingly important in the care sector, as are products that make it easier for people drawing on social care to find services that match the cultural, language and other characteristics that matter to them. I have been fortunate to monitor the progress of the Care Matched solution since its early days and can say with confidence that it ticks all of those boxes.

Kariba Amachree, Founder & Registered Manager, Pragmatic Health Care services: “I love how simple and sleek the design of the technology is, we’ll be using it every day in our agency”

The app launches on January 25th, 2022.