Health and social care is the most common focus of community and voluntary sector services, most of which grew out of dissatisfaction with statutory provision. However, with the many changes in social care and particularly the introduction of personal budgets, opportunities for new services and new relationships between the two sectors have increasingly been opening up.
We selected nine high-potential innovation projects working in this space offering them a little money and a lot of help. The projects ranged from start-up social enterprises to household name charities. The programme benefited from NESTA sponsorship, which enabled us to provide £225k of funding to the projects.
From helping people who simply want well-designed assistive equipment to suporting parents with learning difficulties who want to hold their family together, these innovations were given the chance to develop and grow and to build on their hugely valuable work.
