A tech entrepreneur who experienced long-term medical issues as a child says there are massive gains to be made from better home care.

This follows news that the government will tell health and social care bosses to spend money to keep more elderly patients at home, rather than in hospital.

Josh Hough, founder and CEO of CareLineLive, said it’s in the interests of everyone for there to be more home care provision. He also said this is a key part of reducing bed blocking in NHS hospitals.

Hough said:

“People are spending too long in hospital and it would be in the interests of everyone if they were to return home far sooner.”

The government’s new plan comes from changes to the Better Care Fund, a £9bn funding pot created in 2015 to integrate health and social care.

Hough said the size of this fund demonstrates just what huge savings are on offer if health and home care systems worked together efficiently.

“Taxpayers will definitely benefit from this and it will make life better for patients, carers and the NHS as a whole,” he said.

“The fact that the government is providing £9bn worth of funding to improve home care shows just what an extraordinary amount of savings could be made within the NHS if patients spent less time in hospital and more time at home."

“A lot of what is taking place in hospitals could be done at a patient’s home. However, information necessary for good care isn’t being shared. People delivering care in the community need access to patient data currently held at hospitals."

“Similarly, doctors would greatly benefit from a clear record of the patient, showing what has happened when they were at home. The reason we have bed blocking is because so many people are unnecessarily delayed in hospital."

“I’ve experienced these types of issues first hand. When I was a child and needed regular medical attention I had to repeatedly tell medical professionals and carers about my condition."

“It opened my eyes to what patients have to go through, endlessly repeating themselves while carers and health care staff spend an insane amount of time going through paperwork. “In the 21st century we really need to do better."

Hough added that his company has worked with health care bosses to help free up thousands of beds in NHS hospitals.

“At CareLineLive we've been working with Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust for a number of years and we've helped them free up over 22,000 beds in a 12 month period, equating to more than 60 freed up NHS beds per day,” he said.

“Technology can speed up the triage between hospital discharge and community based care. It’s that space where the bottle necks can occur. We can unblock these beds and the way to do that is by using technology that enables the safe and rapid sharing of data between the relevant people.”

About Josh Hough

Josh Hough is the founder and CEO of homecare software company CareLineLive. The business has over 600 home care clients in seven countries, produces revenues of over £3.5m and has 42 staff.

Josh was born with the rare muscle weakening condition Minicore Myopathy and spent much of his early life in a wheelchair. He set up CareLineLive in 2014 after his family struggled to get information about his grandfather’s care.

CareLineLive is one of the few companies to meet the NHSx requirements to be on the approved supplier list for Digital Social Care Records. It also integrates with GPConnect, enabling access to GP records.