Chapter eight draws on the interviews undertaken with people running care organisations, to bring out three types of innovation - what innovation, how innovation and who innovation. This chapter identifies the different types of innovation that are displayed within the specific context of care; referred to here as what, how and who innovations. In terms of what innovations, some micro-enterprises are delivering services that deviate from the traditional residential, domiciliary and day models of care through the provision of flexible ‘one-to-one support’. Whilst micro-enterprises were offering more flexible services, larger organisations were also offering a broad range of services, and in day provision especially, larger services were found to offer more choice to service users. Whilst it tends to be the what and who innovations within micro-enterprises that are most widely reported, it may be the how innovations that are most important when it comes to the context of social care for older people. For people receiving personal care in the home, the scope for micro providers to take a more flexible approach gives them an advantage over large care providers.
Scotland tries to contain costs of free personal care for older people