Person-to-Person marketplaces

TSC quote Service Users want a relationship with the person who provides Support, not the organisation that employs them. Enabling those direct relationships is demanding. But it can expand local workforces and reshape local markets for Support.

CSIP quote A Person-to-Person market can start small and grow organically in line with ever changing local needs. The possibility of a market for direct personal transactions should be factored into Personalisation planning as early as possible.

This page provides an overview of Marketplaces for Personalisation generally and self-managed Person-to-Person Support specifically. It uses a Q+A format.

1) The role of marketplaces.

A local marketplace can cover all sorts of Support.

Why do we need a marketplace within our Personalisation programme?

Most Local Authority Care is currently provided in a top-down model. The Council purchase a block contract of, say, 100,000 home visits this year. Those visits are then allocated in the most efficient way for the Provider/Commissioner. Typically, a Resource Allocation System or Workforce Scheduling tool is used for the task. This can result in a client getting lunch at 10.00am from a worker who they’ve never met before.

A marketplace is the mechanism by which (a) providers offer their services (b) Service Users decide what to purchase. It is driven from the bottom up. Providers have to organise delivery around buyers' demands, not their own priorities.

We’re offering Service Users a choice of Providers they can phone, isn’t that a market?

It is. But it’s doing little to improve on block contracts. As the Service User, I’m probably not engaged by a list of companies who want to sell me a service. My interest is in the person who will be providing the Support. Do I trust them? How long have I known them? Do we have a rapport? That’s far more important than who is pay-rolling the individual.

Many Service Users will want to continue with familiar models of Care and are happy with a particular Provider organisation. They have the least need for a true marketplace. But others need flexible Support to plug the gaps between informal Care or want more control for other reasons. They are the ones who need more than a list of suppliers. They could be as little as 5% of your clients, but they are likely to be the ones that create the most problems if they are expected to contact multiple Providers in search of their needs.

We’re already planning software as the backbone of our Personalisation drive. Do we need a Person-to-Person marketplace?

Diagram of types of software for Personalisation. (Courtesy of Jeff Jerome, ADASS.)

Yes. Software such as Case Management tools, financial control systems and Resource Allocation Systems are crucial behind-the-scenes tools. But they don't offer a marketplace where sellers list their offerings and buyers make direct purchases.

There are many types of marketplace. Plan My Care are looking at financial management between Clients and Providers. Online Catalogues like Shop4Support, OLM Support Portal or You2Choose are a good way to purchase products such as mobility aids, respite care or Telecare. But when a Service User wants a Personal Assistant to take them shopping this afternoon, an online catalogue provides only listings signposting potential routes to that service.

A Person-to-Person Marketplace offers a Service User the individuals who are qualified, genuinely available to take her to the mall this afternoon and contactable in time. The total price at which each will fulfill the need is displayed. This is much more demanding but a lot more useful. It can be done seamlessly within a site like Shop4Support by inserting a Person-to-Person option within the local catalogue site.

What’s different about a Person-to-Person marketplace?

Service Users (or their advocates) enter a requirement. They then instantly select from the individuals who are qualified, want this particular booking and contactable in time. Each is individually priced for that requirement. Personalised pools of workers for repeat need are easily set up.

It’s completely different technology. A Person-to-Person site allows any vetted care worker to offer whatever hours they are available for work; today, tomorrow or into the future. It prices them for every individual booking for which they’re eligible and monitors their reliability. It doesn’t matter where the individual is sourced from, the site constructs the total charge rate for each worker for each booking, and displays them in price order for that specific requirement.

Cleaning lady Service Users can have pools of individuals they like for Personal Assistant duties, house cleaning, gardening or any other function that’s important to them. Those workers are prioritised for those bookings but the wider market is also on display if an alternative person is needed.

2) The mechanics of a Person-to-Person marketplace.

Managers can instantly see everything that happens in the market.

What can this do for Market Re-Shaping?

Demand led provision. Service Users have an instant view of all their options for each requirement, each of them priced. That allows them to get most value from their budget for their particular preferences. The market evolves organically as Providers have immediate feedback on buyers’ priorities in their area.

Widened workforce. Any vetted individual can offer Support. They may only have ever-changing hours of availability because of childcare, studying, a medical condition or informal caring needs, they’re still welcome. It doesn’t matter how they’re employed. Behind-the-scenes the marketplace will apply all the specified charges to each booking and split out the pay-rolling/invoicing data as required.

Any vetted Support worker can enter the market on their own terms, even if they can only work at irregular times around other commitments.

Precise Management Information. Aggregated data on market activity can be accessed by Council managers. This allows them to (a) pinpoint gaps in supply and show Providers the revenue opportunity: “in this area we have unmet demand for late putting-to-bed visits which are commanding £18 an hour” (b) track the evolution of local markets for reporting purposes: “last week 38.5% of our home visits were outside of mealtimes” (c) provide brokers with suggested individuals for any requirement “we have 8 workers within 1 mile of your client’s home who are happy to accompany Service Users for a swim”.

What is required to launch a Person-to-Person marketplace?

The local impact of Putting People First can be monitored: daily, weekly, monthly or annually.

It varies completely from one Local Authority to another. But here’s a very high level view:

Vetting procedures. The Council needs a policy on (a) the minimum standards required to offer each type of service: perhaps a CRB or ISA check (b) who is authorised to check potential sellers in the market meet those requirements: this might be Council managers or a network of local Voluntary groups (c) the business model for this process: direct Council funding maybe, or it could be self funding through a mark-up built into each transaction.

A group of early adopters. This needs to include Service Users, Brokers, Providers and Council Officers. All need to be aligned in what they expect from the new service.

The marketplace itself. This technology exists. We can provide a core marketplace branded for your organisation, running within your main website if you wish. There will also be specific local requirements that need to be scoped.

What about Safeguarding?

Rest assured: that’s still done by humans, not a computer. Anyone who wants to offer Support of any kind can register on your site. It will take their details then explain they need to be vetted. It shows locations and times for the process, offers a map from the applicant’s home to each appropriate location and tells them what paperwork to bring. It’s only when an organisation approved by the Local Authority has decided the individual meets Council standards that a first tranche of hours can be offered to Service Users.

Quality Control is ensured through acceptance of timesheets. Personalised rankings can be added.

On top of this protection, the marketplace can build a continuous audit trail of who has authorised what. Assume a worst case scenario in which a Carer is found to be irresponsible. The Council can respond immediately. Officers can instantly: (a) see all other clients who have had contact with that individual and may need to be contacted (b) find the person and organisation who authorised the worker to offer services (c) view all the other workers authorised through the same channel, they may need to be suspended from the market pending re-vetting.

Isn’t Internet access a problem?

The issue isn’t necessarily: “is this Service User able to access the Internet?” It could be: “Can we find someone, anywhere, who can reliably access the Internet on behalf of this Service User?” That may be a network of advocates, for instance a son who lives at the other end of the country but can be phoned and asked to book. Or it could be a broker who has a small charge built into each booking they make. A designated neighbour is another option. Maybe the Council Contact Centre will transact for a user in return for a call fee built into the charge? Informal Call Centre cover can be provided by volunteers who have a rota for a number that’s routed to a different person for different times, each of them having a web connected computer.

Elderly user and laptop One type of local Support that can be offered to more adventurous clients is personalised Computer training. Service Users who want to see all their options and directly control their bookings can be met at the library or Internet Café and shown how to handle their own requirements directly.

How would a marketplace integrate with our other IT systems?

Your marketplace needs to be both modular and feature industry standard Open Architecture: designed to exchange data with other systems. It can then (a) feed data on transactions into your Resource Allocation, Workforce Management, Budgeting or Payroll systems (b) potentially take data out, for example automatically accepting details from your HR system of staff who want to work very flexibly.

3) Steps towards a Person-to-Person marketplace.

Officers from Kirklees Council learn about Personalised Markets.

We already have several projects underway. Where does a marketplace fit in?

It’s one more project. But it should start alongside the others because it will touch them all. The possibility of a marketplace for direct bookings may need to be factored into your decisions about: (a) Provider models (b) Safeguarding processes (c) Brokerage provision (d) Market Re-shaping (e) the initial Individual Budgets package (f) communications around Self Directed Support.

At some point you will need to decide the scope of your marketplace. Is it just for formal Care or the widest range of Support? For publicly funded Service Users alone, or as a platform for Universal Services? Is it at the core of your Personalised Services, or just a peripheral offering for clients who have exceptionally flexible or demanding needs? Is it a standalone site branded for the Council or a part of a wider portal site? All these factors could impact your thinking in other parts of the Transformation of Social Care.

What would a Person-to-Person marketplace project look like?

It would need to deliver the following: (a) business case for the new market (b) design of processes to enable the marketplace (c) functionality required for local objectives (d) roadmap to launch including identifying specific local early adopters. This will require sessions with your stakeholders and a deep understanding of local issues the marketplace needs to address such as; shortage of workers, particularly demanding clients, rural provision, inefficiencies on the fringes of the area served or desire to increase micro-providers.

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