Cera Care: Home Health 2020
Cera Care is a London-based technology-enabled home care company established to allow families to arrange, schedule and manage home care for elderly relatives, it uses an on-demand digital platform to match people seeking in-home assistance with professional carers, allowing them to keep updated on a patient’s progress, while also using Artificial Intelligence to predict potential health deteriorations. It provides services for different types of elderly care.
Cera Care was formally launched in early 2016 by Dr. Mahiben Maruthappu, MBE after receiving an angel investment of £300,000 from Dr. Mussaad M. Al-Razouki and his Silicon Gulf Syndicate amongst other notable investors. In November 2016, the company raised £1.3 million from investors including David Buttress, the former CEO of JustEat, and Peter Sands, the former CEO of Standard Chartered. At the time it was the largest seed-round funding in European healthcare history. In April 2017, Cera Care raised a further £1.4 million in financial backing. To date, the company raised £20 million over the past three years.
In March 2017, Cera Care partnered with the Barts Health NHS Trust to provide carers for elderly patients in their own homes and accelerating patients’ discharge from the five Barts Health hospitals, in order to prevent bed blocking. The partnership also allowed NHS doctors to refer patients to carers through the Cera platform, potentially matching up to 6 million patients with carers.
As the agreement with the NHS was finalized, Cera contracted Uber to transport both patients and carers. Following the launch of its partnership with Uber, Cera Care commenced a partnership with taxi service Gett to deliver items from London chemists to patients at home.
Cera Care introduced a chatbot, Martha, in May 2017. Created with Bloomsbury AI, Martha is a virtual assistant able to review patients’ digital records and answer questions for both patients and carers, basing the answers on data points gathered by care workers and digitized care records. Cera Care later developed a patient care dashboard to provide patients with on-demand access to care, medications, transportation, food, and doctor’s services via tablet computer. It also claims to have developed a platform that predicts patient deteriorations by computing the risk of events such as hospitalizations based on carer input.
In 2018, Cera Care expanded to Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, in addition to acquiring care businesses in Huddersfield and Nottingham. As part of their growth plans, Cera invested £10 million to expand to 14 cities across the UK and roll out new technologies, as well as launch a major recruitment drive for the social care sector through social media. In October of 2018 the UK Government and Secretary of State for Health launched their Vision for the Future of Healthcare in the country. Cera Care was used as a case study for what the future of British care could look like.
2018 also saw the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Sir Nick Clegg as Chairman of Cera Care’s Advisory Board, a position later taken on by Sir David Behan, former CEO of the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Among the current members of the Cera Advisory Board are Dame Carol Black, former President of the Royal College of Physicians and Thomas Zeltner, former Vice-Chair of the World Health Organisation.
“The country faces huge challenges in the funding and provision of social care, and it is clear that fresh and innovative thinking is required to meet them.
We are only just beginning to see the potential of technology in public services, and I am enormously excited by the work that Cera is doing — particularly through the use of artificial intelligence — in this area.”
— Sir Nick Clegg
At the beginning of 2019, Cera Care partnered with IBM to test sensors used in self-driving cars to help with monitoring of elderly people. The aim of this new product was to use the data collected by sensors and alert caregivers of any change in patterns that could signify a deterioration in patients’ health, allowing them to respond faster and consequentially reduce avoidable hospital stays. Also in 2019, Cera care launched its Smart Care app, which uses machine learning and data from 68,000 care records, reviewed by professionals, to predict and alert carers to possible health deteriorations with 82% accuracy.
Highlights from the Past Three Years
Cera CEO, Dr. Mahiben Maruthappu, appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen, in the upcoming New Year’s 2020 Honours List, for services to Health & Social Care technology; and named Entrepreneur of the Year.
Cera acquisition of Cyprian Care and reaching over 400 employees.
Cera rated ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) across Nottingham and London branches, with a 0.005% complaints rate, and 9.5/10 HomeCare.co.uk rating.
Cera receives numerous awards including Outstanding Home Care Provider, and Best Technology, at the National Home Care Awards.
Care Delivery
“The carers have been wonderful, kind, efficient and always spot potential health issues before they can develop into something serious. This has meant that my mother has been able to stay in her own home, safely and happily. We are delighted with this service” — Cera Customer
100% of new customers received care on the same day as their inquiry, when requested or required, reflecting improved speed and agility of Cera’s service and onboarding processes
Cera’s redesigned training format for carers resulted in 25% increase in training efficiency
Technology
85% of carers say the can provide safer services to users, due to Cera’s technology
“The Cera app is very easy to use. I can view my upcoming visits and future work schedules clearly. And they are always up to date. The app also allows me to leave a message to the care team. The care team has immediate visibility of the visit reports which allows them to follow up with client health concerns right away” — Lili Morshedizadeh, Carer based in Nottingham
Deployed Carer App
Cera’s new tech platform reduces average time for visits to be reviewed
Based on data from 5000+ care sessions, Cera deployed Machine Learning has already demonstrated 83% accuracy in predicting health concerns and a 93% accuracy in suggesting the right tasks to carers. Such robust results will ensure that the standards and efficiency of our services will only improve, allowing us to leverage data in the care sector in new and powerful ways
Growth
Cera developed a £100m M&A pipeline and robust diligence process for selecting acquisitions
Cera secured places on the NHS Shared Business Services Framework, Nottingham NHS DPS framework, Newham NHS DPS framework and partnerships with Active Assist, Tunstall and Four Seasons
Cera Care received a number of awards including Best Live-in Care Expertise; Best Technology and Data; Outstanding Home Care Provider; Most Innovative Elderly Home Healthcare Company; 2019 Digital Health award for the best use of Artificial Intelligence; The UK’s top AgeTech startup; One of BusinessCloud’s Top 101 Health Tech Innovators for 2019; Escape the City Top Organisations to Escape to in 2019 and several others
Cera was part of a UK delegation to China, as a Healthy Ageing Sector specialist, as part of Innovate UK’s Global Expert Missions program. Tao Fu, Cera’s Head of Operations shared the company’s vision and discussed how innovation will play a key role in transforming the sector
Cera received extensive media coverage including articles in The Guardian, Forbes, Financial Times, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Homecare Insight, Med-tech news, Laing Buisson, Care Home Professional, Disruptionhub and others
