The challenge brings together entrepreneurially minded individuals, sector leaders and experts by experience to design solutions to solve social care’s biggest challenges and maximise its most exciting opportunities. What unites them is their ambition to develop ideas that increase quality of life and improve quality of care while pushing the boundaries of innovation.

We’re looking for applications from people aged 18 or over who are already working within the care sector or moving into the sector, university students and graduates and people who simply want to make a difference.

This year the NCF team are turning their attention to a broader range of matters within the sector and will be encouraging applicants and mentors to consider:

• changing demography and the additional demands on social care that this will bring
• the potential of tech and generative AI and the best ways to harness these developments
• environmentally sustainable innovations to help the ‘greening’ of the care sector
• new approaches to workforce in light of restrictions on international recruitment and new workforce pathway for social care

Successful applicants will be invited to come along to the innovation weekend this summer and participate in two days of idea generation and prototype trialling with mentoring from our fantastic partners and mentors. At the end of the weekend each applicant will pitch their idea and the best five will be selected to go through to the final, voted for by delegates, at The Care Show Birmingham in October 2024.

This is a unique opportunity to network with supportive experts, influencers and leaders in social care as well as successful entrepreneurs. But don’t just take our word for it, here’s what some of our previous participants said about their experience of the Care Innovation Challenge:

“The experience itself is so worthwhile, especially with the mentoring that you receive and the contacts that you meet. I would urge people to come to the Challenge with an open mind – it’s not about winning or making lots of money. It’s for those people who genuinely want to make a difference in the care sector.” Elizabeth Beh, Challenge Winner 2023

“It’s invaluable to have experts that you would not ordinarily have access to. Providing their own perspectives and explaining the challenges in the care sector and allowing us to frame how our ideas could help the sector was incredibly helpful.” Rahim Kawooya, Runner-up 2023 and Founder of Well Pal Ltd

“Don’t be afraid to go on your own. I was a bit nervous driving there and I almost regretted signing up because I had a really busy week at work. I was driving there and I thought, I don’t know what to expect. If you are going alone, don’t let that put you off because it could be your strength.” Lauren Stacey, Winner 2022 and Locality Manager at Skills for Care and Support Professional for Wellys Workplace

Please visit https://careinnovationhub.org.uk/challenge/ to register now and we could be seeing you in the summer for a weekend of exciting innovation!