Social enterprises in health and care
The 26 organisations marked with an asterisk are the 'pathfinders ' chosen by the Department of Health in January 2007.
Alston Healthcare * in Cumbria provides community health services, including e-health services, across a rural area, with a particular focus on older people.
Apnee Sehat *, based in the West Midlands, is a temple to table community programme for the prevention and management of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
The Big Life Group creates chances for people to change their lives for the better. It provides a wide range of services in Greater Manchester and northern England for people who have lacked opportunities, financial and emotional security, good education and self-belief.
Blakelock Elderly Care Co-operative provides day care and domestic home help in Hartlepool, Cleveland.
blueSCI promotes wellbeing through aspirations, social engagement and creative opportunities in the North West. Its approach focuses on having a sense of purpose and direction in life, good quality relationships with others and opportunities to realise one’s potential.
The Bridge * is a social enterprise to deliver alcohol and substance misuse programmes in London. The service includes residential accommodation, therapy programmes, modular treatment centres, and a back-to-work programme.
Bridgenorth Homecare Co-operative provides home care in Bridgnorth, Shropshire.
The British Ethnic Health Awareness Foundation (BEHAF) aims to raise health awareness in the public (particularly, the minority ethnic communities) & assist to improve overall access to health care services at local and national levels.
The Bromley by Bow Centre * is a pioneering social organisation in east London led by the local community. The Centre has developed an innovative model to regenerate the area, seeking to make it a healthy learning community within the economic mainstream.
Care at Home is a co-operative providing a range of practical home care services in Shropshire.
Carers Direct (SW) Ltd. is a co-operative business in the South Hams area of Devon committed to providing a flexible and reliable service for people of all ages to enable them to remain independent and in their own homes
Castle Meadows Care Centre is a co-operative providing residential care in Dudley, West Midlands.
The Centre for Public Innovation 's main interests are in improving people's health and reducing crime. The driving passion is to improve the management and delivery of public services, working to improve performance, resolve difficulties and bring about change for the better. CPI does this by offering a wide range of high quality and responsive consultancy, training and developmental services.
Chipmunkapublishing is the world's first mental health publisher. 95% of titles are written by people with mental health issues. It publishes and promotes literature that brings a positive attitude towards mental health issues. It wants to prove that everything in life is a mental health issue and therefore, to eliminate the humiliation that people with "mental illness" feel.
City Health Care Partnership * in Hull provides all primary and community health services across the city through a social enterprise.
Community Docs for All * is a locally managed primary care medical service for the population of one ward in Weston-super-Mare, and aims to link primary care services with wider health improvement and regeneration initiatives.
Community Food Enterprise is 100% owned by residents of West Ham and Plaistow in Newham, east London. Its vision is to enable local residents to create, develop and lead a sustainable food enterprise, nationally recognised as alleviating food poverty and food access issues in partnership with private and public sector organisations.
The Community Health Action Partnership (CHAP) is a community-owned social enterprise in Salford, Greater Manchester, which runs health and happiness services, based on the strengths and skills of local people.
Community Home Care Services is a co-operative providing home care services in Salford, Greater Manchester.
Core Arts exists to promote, freely and without prejudice, the artistic and creative abilities of people who experience severe and enduring mental health problems.
DCP * is a social enterprise in Newcastle delivering services to people living with dementia, and their carers.
Decoda use sound and music technologies as the key to connecting to individuals with communication problems.
Delivering Connected Care * in Hartlepool provides integrated health and social care services, bringing these together with housing, education, employment, community safety and transport, in an area of high deprivation.
The Developing Partners Project * in Middlesbrough aims to develop and provide user led training for health workers, and user led research and evaluation of health services.
Devon Healthy Living Community * offers cluster multi-disciplinary primary care teams integrated with the voluntary sector, providing advice on early intervention services for patients.
East London Integrated Care (ELIC) is a mutual organisation which supports GPs and other primary care staff to work together to develop high-quality services for local people. See case study.
ECT Group provides better services for communities across the UK. This includes London's first nurse-led social enterprise primary care practice at Cuckoo Lane Health Care in Ealing.
Equalability is a disability consultancy owned and managed for the benefit, principally, of the disabled community.
The European Nursing Leadership Foundation delivers consultancy, organisational development and individual development, focused on nursing.
The Expert Patients' Programme (EPP) develops self-management programmes for people with long-term conditions across England.
First Step Trust offers people with enduring mental health problems, learning disabilities and other disadvantages the chance to work; experiencing the challenges of working in a small business, trading with the local community.
The Forest of Dean Health Enterprise Trust * provides community health and social services in a rural area, including the operation of existing community hospitals.
Future Health and Social Care, based in Birmingham, supports vulnerable people who are in need, by providing access to housing, education, training and employment - whilst developing social skills which enable each individual to become independent within their community.
Gateway Family Services offers training in health and social care to excluded communities across Birmingham. It helps people access work in the health sector and encourages community involvement in the delivery of public services.
Genesis Dental Care runs an ethically governed, non-profit driven professional dental service, committed to delivering first class, affordable and user friendly, oral health care services to communities throughout the country.
Get Well UK enables GPs to confidently refer people to complementary therapists, by providing information, support and a team of highly skilled and qualified practitioners. With NHS finance, this service is free to individuals. It believes that complementary medicine can play an important role in improving health and well-being and wants to ensure that many more people have access to effective health care.
Hammersmith and Fulham Action on Disability is an independent advocacy service to provide for the needs of those people who are either in, or believe that they are entitled to, Adult Social Care.
Health Equality Lifestyle Plan * in Coventry is transforming a successful healthy living centre into a social enterprise.
Healthy Goals UK provides a lifestyle programme and sports coaching service to North East education and health authorities.
Healthy Living Centre * in Southend is a healthy living centre with a hub for integrated children’s services into a social enterprise. Services include primary care, children’s services, adult mental health, and health enhancing activities.
Homecare Nottingham is a co-operative providing personal care or help with housework to people in their own homes.
Inclusive Access is a consultancy specialising in disability and access issues with the aim of providing: practical and realistic access advice; creative and appropriate solutions; value for money; personal attention and enthusiasm for your project. It is the social enterprise arm of a charity on the Wirral of and for disabled people – Wired.
Intlife Pain , based in Glasgow, offers simple and effective pain management techniques and training. It aims to fill gaps that currently exist in the NHS pain management service and intends to offer its services free to low income individuals and those living in less affluent areas.
It’s a Goal! provides a service with a difference. Situated within football league clubs, it tackles the issues of depression and suicide amongst young men between the ages of 16-35. It’s a Goal! uses the world’s most popular sport to encourage and help young men deal with their difficulties in a different way from traditional psychological services.
Kendra Development CIC is a community interest company based in east Kent. Its aim is to help women, their families and communities to make informed choices about family health and social issues through workshops, consultancy and sign-posting. It also enables agencies serving these communities to provide high quality, client-centred services.
The Kibble Centre in Paisley is one of Scotland's largest and most thriving social enterprises. It works with young people who have a complex mix of social, emotional, educational and behavioural problems. Its services include community outreach programmes, residential care, social welfare, full secondary education, throughcare and aftercare, intensive fostering, and secure care.
Leicester Homeless Primary Care Service * provides primary medical services to vulnerable patients. Its primary health care centre is co-located with a 42-bed night shelter and a YMCA drop in centre.
Lifestyle Solutions * in Thurrock provides services for disabled people and people with learning difficulties, including social and emotional support, the provision of personal assistants, respite for carers and support towards independent living.
Local Care Direct is one of the largest providers of out-of-hours healthcare services in the country, serving more than two million people in West Yorkshire.
Lorica Learning Disabilities * is a community interest company based in Pulborough, Sussex. It provides services for people with learning difficulties and their families, including helping support young adults during the transition to independent living.
Magic Breakfast provides breakfast food to UK primary schools as essential fuel for learning, especially for the 25% of children for whom the food at school is their only daily source of nutrition. It also provides innovative schools-based training and development programmes.
Maternal Link Birth Centres * provides antenatal, postnatal and community midwifery services at home or in birth centres in the Trafford area.
Milton Keynes Health and Social Care Services * provides health and social care services including older people’s services, children’s services, adult out-of-hospital services, and integrated mental health and learning difficulties services.
Nethercrest Nursing Home is a co-operative providing nursing, residential and intermediate care in Dudley, West Midlands.
The Memory Trust promote, assess and certify the memorisation of classic verse.
The Open Door * provides a range of primary care services for vulnerable people in the Grimsby area, in addition to support into employment, gardening and music therapies, exercise and cooking skills.
Opening Doors Cumbria is a social firm working with people in the community who have severe and enduring mental heath problems by promoting social inclusion through learning, volunteering, lifestyle choices and work opportunities.
Parents 1st enables the ‘Community Parent’ concept to flourish by promoting sustainable and effective peer support programmes in less advantaged communities. Programmes focus on promoting early parenting skills, health and wellbeing; community involvement and easier access to information and services. Organisations they work with typically deliver children’s centre, extended schools, or child health promotion services.
Patient Opinion enables individuals to share their experiences of health care, and by doing so help other people - and perhaps even change the NHS. As well as allowing everyone to see what citizens are saying about their services, it also offers a way to feed individual experiences back to the NHS so that their insights and ideas can be put to good use.
Phoenix Care Agency in London provides health and social care services to vulnerable adults, including emotional well-being, art activities, horticultural therapies, training, support to employment, and carer’s services.
Principia Partners in Health * in Rushcliffe is a coalition of GP practices, community professionals, community pharmacy and local people. Principia provides primary care, including extended hours access, and community services to a population of 118,000.
The Rural Renewal Company supports more sustainable living in rural towns and urban communities. Its primary focus is the creation of a major, pioneering demonstration of sustainable living: the Natural Living Centre Ecovillage, including the Natural Health Centre, which draws on conventional and complementary treatments and all the resources of the Ecovillage to enable people to live more sustainably.
Rushcliffe Mutual provides and commissions an extended range of local health care services through practice-based commissioning in Rushcliffe, South Nottinghamshire.
Salford Health Matters * provides essential medical services and community based enhanced health services, to a population of 12,600. The organisation also aims to provide training and development that benefits the local community and to support social enterprise activity with a wider health benefit in the community.
Sandwell Community Caring Trust in the West Midlands provides high-quality residential, day care and supported living to older people and adults with physical and learning disabilities. It promotes the well-being and independence of its service users.
Saturn V provides physical activity sessions in the form of rebound therapy and special needs trampolining for adults and children with learning disabilities in the Caterham area.
SCA Group delivers community care services and health services in central southern England. SCA Healthcare* is an industrial and provident society, providing a range of community services including a long-term condition resource centre and support to carers and relatives from a community hospital in Southampton.
Scotch Bonnet Catering, based in south London, creates authentic, high quality African and Caribbean food, while also providing real training and employment opportunities for people with mental health needs and learning difficulties.
Secure HealthCare * provides prison and offender health care services in HMP Wandsworth, and develops and implements innovative ways of delivering care to this complex population and how these services could be applied elsewhere.
SELDOC is a GP Co-operative providing out of hours General Medical Services to its members in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham.
Service User Led Direct Payments* in London is a service user-led social enterprise to support and manage direct payments and individualised budgets.
Shepshed Carers is a home care co-operative offering personal and domestic help to elderly and disabled people in their own homes in Loughborough and north-west Leicestershire.
Sohoboyz aims to create an accessible and flexible service which meets the diverse needs of men working in the sex industry.
The Somerset Care Group is a provider of care homes and personal care services in Somerset and the Isle of Wight.
Space 2 Talk is an unincorporated association based in Hertfordshire, providing locally responsive and affordable evidence-based person-centred counselling, both face to face and in groups. Our aims are to widen access and choice in psychological therapy/counselling, as well as helping to tackle stigma in mental health, promoting mental health and social inclusion.
Speaking Up empowers people with learning difficulties, mental ill-health or other disabilities to have a voice and control of their own lives. It offers life-coaching, person-centred planning and professional advocacy.
St. Luke’s Healthy Living Centre CIC aims to improve the health and wellbeing of local people and create training, employment and social enterprise opportunities for residents in St. Luke’s and adjacent wars in Southend on Sea.
Sunderland Home Care Associates is Wearside's leading independent provider of personal care in the home. It has 180 members / employees and a turnover approaching £2 million.
The Sunlight Trust is a community owned and managed social enterprpise in Gillingham, Kent, which combines a mix of services aimed at everyone within its community. Its overriding aim is to improve health inequity and wellbeing by providing an improved range of social, medical and community activities.
Surrey Community Provider Services * provides community health services to a total population of 1.1 million people in Surrey, and is exploring using an umbrella model to support a number of social enterprises providing community-based services.
Total Healthcare Groups has a holistic approach to 'action for health and wellness' for the individual, family, groups and diverse communities in London. Its vision is to meet the holistic health and social care needs of the 21st Century consumer on a 24-hour basis.
Turning Point is the UK’s leading social care organisation. It provides services for people with complex needs, including those affected by drug and alcohol misuse, mental health problems and those with a learning disability.
The Wellbeing Project is the country’s first mental health and well-being consultancy service, marketing the sale of a range of innovative services and materials to the public and private sectors. It is a community interest company that actively recruits individuals with personal insights into mental health distress to train as Wellbeing Consultants.
Wells Hospital and Hospice Trust was established by local people to take on the ownership and management of their community hospital through a partnership of local people and organisations in Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk.
Willow Bank Community Interest Company* based in Stoke-on-Trent provides General Medical Services and one-stop care, with a particular focus on vulnerable groups including lone-parent families, local homeless people and black and minority ethnic communities.
The Willows is a residential home in Wolverhampton, run as a care co-operative.
Wrekin Care is a co-operative providing homecare services in the Telford and Wrekin areas of Shropshire.