Learning from practice

A dissertation now available on-line provides an interesting exploration of social enterprise in healthcare.

Mark Bertram's paper, published earlier this year, explores two points:

Can an existing NHS sheltered work project be successfully transformed into a Social Firm operated by service users?

To what extent can such a transformed service be self-sufficient and profitable?

The sheltered work project in question is Carpet Cleaning Care which, currently, is still part of the NHS Trust in which it was created. The paper considers some interesting issues that arose during the journey of considering Social Firm development and Mark is happy to share the learnings with others in the arena of vocational rehabilitation for people with mental health problems and conversion of sheltered work projects.