Equal Care Co-op

Halifax

Co-op matches those seeking care with care workers and professionally trained volunteers.

Founded in 2018, Equal Care Co-op (Eccoo) is the UK’s first digital platform social care co-operative, owned and operated by the people who receive and give support.

It matches those seeking care with local care and support workers and professionally trained volunteers in the Upper Calder Valley in Calderdale, West Yorkshire. People wanting care can choose who supports them and how, and have control over their data and who sees it. And care and support workers can choose when and where they work.

Eccoo offers an alternative to profit-driven care agencies that pay minimum wage and give workers little autonomy over their hours or job security. In June 2019, it raised over £400,000 through a pioneering community share offer and gained over 150 new investor members. The funds will help develop the platform software through which reports, care plans, appointments and training will be digitised, removing administrative costs and channelling more money to the workers themselves. Eccoo are currently prototyping and testing the platform.

Founder Emma Adelaide Back told the Independent: “We’re not looking at increasing the price of social care, we’re just using the platform as a tool to achieve enough efficiencies so that more of it can go to the worker.”