Circle: a low-cost model for 21st-century adult social care?

An innovative project has the potential to grow into a replacement for existing services for older people, by Hilary Cottam

Our conviction that the answer to healthy, happy ageing did not lie in rearranging existing services within ever-decreasing budgets led us to design Circle with and for older people in south London five years ago. We wanted to show what a 21st-century service for older people should look like. Our founding members told us they needed help with life’s practical tasks and they dreamed of a rich social life – one where they might make friends based on shared interests rather than preconceptions of age.

By early next year we will have six Circles operating across England in places such as inner-city Rochdale, Nottingham and more rural Suffolk. We will also be launching London Circle – a network that can reach across the capital offering local Circles at lower cost through a distributed network that is centrally supported.

Innovation continues as we work with local authorities to reach further into traditional areas of adult social care and transform the offering – from a meals service where members can either choose to eat at a discount in local restaurants with our dine-out card or cook at home in small groups with supported shopping, to our virtual home ward, which ensures that Circle helpers prepare a member’s home in anticipation of hospital discharge.

Circle differs from the retirement village model in Rotherfield. It uses technology to support a range of often isolated older people, and is neither dependent on a few individuals, nor on grants. But perhaps the main distinction is that rather than being a valuable add-on to existing services, Circle is aiming to grow into a replacement.

Relationships underpin every aspect of Circle: members from all walks of life participate because social events and support feel “normal”. A lot of paid and unpaid helpers join up because they can do so in a way that fits in with their own lives – an hour or two here and there between school pick-ups, for example – and they enjoy the relationships with older Circle members.

Technology makes it possible to co-ordinate a large and diverse membership and a mixed economy of time, nominal membership fees of about £30 a year, charges on some services such as gardening, and discounts on others such as buying books or mobile phones. Costs are low because no buildings, minibuses or other old welfare infrastructure is needed. Activities take place in members’ homes, trips in shared cars.

The debate about the future of adult social care and ageing services in Britain is inadequate. A relentless focus on finance and costs obscures the fact the services are increasingly out of step with people’s lives.

Circle is an exemplar of what a future welfare state could look like. Open to all for a small joining fee, it is preventative: half our several thousand members are in their 50s and 60s; the oldest in their 90s. A small public investment is used to develop a team and some great technology, which then draws in wider resources: payments for some services, people’s time, and the sharing of cars, skills and talent.

The social outcomes are measurable and the cost savings considerable. In Southwark, for example, we have facilitated 14,600 hours of social activity, reached more than 175,000 people, delivered more than 5,100 hours of support and established more than 170 local partnerships while delivering savings to the local authority. We would like to make that possible for older people everywhere.

• Hilary Cottam is principal partner of Participle. For more information, contact [email protected]