Tech Innovation in Homecare Conference 2025

 

Chief Executive, Homecare Association

Jane Townson is CEO of the Homecare Association. She has extensive experience in the social care, health, housing and technology sectors. Chair of the Board of Kraydel; formerly CEO Somerset Care Group; and Chairman YourLife (JV with McCarthy & Stone). Jane’s first career was in international leadership roles in research and development in ICI, AstraZeneca and Syngenta, where she was Global Head of Bioscience Research. She then established her own business providing consultancy and training on the link between lifestyle factors and public health, working with private individuals and public sector organisations.

 

Chair: Applied Health and Care Research; Dame Kathleen Raven
Chair in Clinical Research, University of Leeds, Leeds UK.

Carl Thompson is Professor of Applied Health and Social Care Research at the University of Leeds a core partner of NIHR SSCR@Leeds and NICHE-Leeds, an academic-care sector research partnership based on the Dutch "Living Lab" model.

Carl has led pioneering work at the intersection of health technology, implementation science, and adult social care. He is Principal Investigator of SENSITISE, a national programme exploring how older people and care professionals prioritise the features of technology-enabled care (TEC), and he has advised care providers, local authorities, and national bodies on the implementation of TEC to improve safety, quality, and independence in domiciliary and residential settings.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Carl led the first study of wearable technology enabled contact-tracing in care homes (The CONTACT trial). 

Carl’s work spans empirical research, policy influence, and implementation support — from evaluating remote monitoring for falls prevention in care homes, to shaping data-sharing infrastructures that support ethical, actionable insights from real-world care data. His focus is not only on what technologies can do, but on how and why they are (or aren’t) adopted in the human, complex systems of social care.

He is a frequent advisor to the NIHR, UKRI, and international research councils, and continues to advocate for evidence-based, user-centred innovation in homecare and community support for older people.

 

MSc Education, PGCPD, BSc (Hons) Professional Practice, Dip Nursing studies RGN
Director & Registered Manager StellarCare NW LTD
Championing Social Care Ambassador | Board Member, Partners in Care

Stella Shaw is a registered nurse and founder of StellarCare NW, an award-winning, nurse-led home care provider delivering complex and compassionate care across Cheshire & Wirral. With over two decades of experience in cardiology, academia, and project management, Stella blends clinical expertise with innovative models of service delivery. Passionate about reimagining home care, she leads on integrating technology to reduce hospital admissions and support people to live well at home.

 

Owner & CEO, 1st Homecare
Chair of the Board, Homecare Association

John’s first career was as a Chartered Accountant working in London, Madrid and Johannesburg. He then decided to move into the Care sector by buying 1st Homecare in 2012 so that he could make a real difference to people’s lives.

Since 2012 John has grown 1st Homecare which now has three offices and a Live-in service operating in Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. Most clients are self-funders but also include clients commissioned by four different Local Authorities.

John firmly believes in the need for good regulation so that all Providers perform to the same minimum standards and believes that a key role of the Association is to work closely with the CQC, the new Labour Government and its other agencies to this end.

His spare time is taken up with the demands of two school age children, tennis, cycling and hill walking.

 

Founder & Medical Director, Home Visit Healthcare
Co-Founder, Care Boodle
Chair, Community Hospital Association

Dr Kirsten Protherough is a GP with a special interest in frailty, dementia, and positive ageing. She is the Founder and Medical Director of Home Visit Healthcare, a CQC-registered service providing home-based medical care and virtual frailty reviews.  She until recently was Chair of the Community Hospital Association, working nationally with NHS and social care partners to champion innovation in community and intermediate care.

She leads Upskill for Frailty, an education platform designed to upskill domiciliary care staff and managers in recognising, responding to, and preventing frailty crises, helping to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions. Kirsten is passionate about bridging the gap between health and social care, and is now developing Careboodle with 2 Co-founders Liz Blacklock and Stella Shaw, a digital support tool to help carers detect and respond to delirium in real time. With her clinical, leadership and innovation experience, she brings both frontline insight and strategic vision to improving the future of care.

Kirsten co-leads the E-learning Frailty Course for the University of Worcester, which is now on its 9th Cohort.

 

Cofounder, Lingly.ai

Henry Popiolek is the cofounder of Lingly.ai, an innovative language learning platform designed specifically for the care sector. A linguist who speaks multiple European languages, Henry has channelled his experience into helping international care workers overcome the communication barriers they face on the job.

Lingly’s research shows that 9 out of 10 complaints in home care stem from language issues, highlighting how little structured support international staff receive- despite working in a profession where clear communication is essential. From navigating local accents to mastering technical vocabulary, care staff face challenges that go far beyond traditional language learning.

Lingly is tackling this head-on. Their platform has already supported hundreds of displaced workers and care professionals, and their mission is clear: to solve the language barrier in adult social care.

 

Managing Director, Lapis Care

Liz Blacklock set up Lapis Care in 2015 after many years as a nurse in Primary Care. From the outset she used electronic care management, back when there were only a few systems to choose from. It’s now part of everyday practice, helping care professionals record clearly and escalate when needed, whilst giving families a snapshot of care and reassurance wherever they are in the world.

Liz has always been clear that technology is there to support the professional, not replace them, and that approach has helped Lapis build a steady reputation for reliable, consistent care over almost ten years.

 

CEO, London Autism Group Charity
Principal Lecturer in Public Health, University of Bedfordshire

Dr Chris Papadopoulos is a public health academic and charity leader with a strong track record of research and thought leadership on the application of artificial intelligence, robotics, and technology in health and social care. He co-authored Transcultural Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Health and Social Care (Elsevier, 2022), and led the UK arm of the EU–Japan CARESSES trial, the first randomised controlled trial testing culturally competent AI-embedded socially assistive robots in older adult care homes. His research has also explored large language models in social care, ethical boundaries in AI, and the potential of technology-enabled care to improve outcomes for older people.

Chris is also one of the most active commentators internationally on the application and use of AI and large language models for autistic and neurodivergent people, with multiple recent papers in Neurodiversity exploring both opportunities and risks. Few have written more extensively on this theme.

He has been invited to speak on these subjects at major platforms including the Care Show, UK Care Week, Future of Care Leaders Conference, European Social Services Conference, The King’s Fund, and the Royal College of Physicians. He also advises governments, regulators and professional bodies on technology-enabled care, including as expert advisor to the Scottish Government’s Care Inspectorate for Technology Enabled Care and evaluator for the European Commission’s Public Health Best Practices scheme.

Beyond technology, Chris is a recognised voice in neurodiversity and mental health, author of Voices of Neurodiversity: An Inclusive Encyclopaedia (Routledge, 2025), and CEO of the London Autism Group Charity. His work combines academic rigour, lived experience, and practical insights into how innovation can be harnessed inclusively to deliver better, fairer systems of care.

 

Digital Projects Lead for the Digital Care Hub

Katie is the Digital Projects Lead for the Digital Care Hub. For social care providers, by social care providers, the Digital Care Hub provides free guidance and support to care organisations on technology, data protection and cyber security.

Katie has played a significant role in advocating for and implementing digital solutions in social care and is the co-convener of the Oxford Project on the Responsible Use of Generative AI in Adult Social Care.  Her work focuses on ensuring that digital innovations in social care are used ethically and effectively.

Her background includes working in nursing homes as both a carer and in operations.

Katie has been recognised for her work supporting care providers by receiving The Woman in Tech award at the Women Achieving Greatness in Social Care (WAGS) awards (2022) and the NHS England Award in the Public Service Category of the National Cyber Awards (2023).

 

Business Development Lead, First City Care Group

Olly has nearly 20 years’ experience in adult social care, working across Local Authorities, the NHS, and with community care providers. His roles have focused on commissioning and transformation, always with the aim of shaping services that are flexible for people who need support and provide great career pathways for those delivering care.

Olly is particularly passionate about how technology and AI can help create more responsive and adaptable models of community care and commissioning. He believes digital tools and smarter approaches have the potential to improve outcomes for people, while also making care more sustainable and rewarding for the workforce.

 

Director of Adult Social Care Services, Derby City Council

Andrew is Director of Adult Social Care at Derby City Council, where he is leading transformational service reforms focused on early intervention and prevention.

In his early career at the Care Quality Commission Andrew was an Inspector then an Inspection Manager before working at the Department of Health and Social Care as a Regional Assurance Lead. There, he contributed to the development of Charging Reform and CQC assurance policy White Papers.

Andrew puts people at the heart of everything he does, driving change across health and social care and champions the use of technology and innovation to promote independence.

 

CEO & Co-Founder, Honor Technology

Seth is a pioneer and entrepreneur at the intersection of Al, aging, and mission-driven innovation. As CEO and Co-Founder of Honor Technology, he leads the largest home care network in the western hemisphere, delivering over 60 million hours of in-home support annually to older adults.

Seth set out to solve one of the world's most urgent but under-addressed challenges: to change the way society cares for older adults. He and Honor's co-founders developed an Al-powered platform that not only helps older adults remain safely at home but also redesigns frontline jobs to improve stability, respect, and retention of caregivers, known as Honor Care Pros.

Under Seth's leadership, Honor became a rare example of a tech company using Al not for novelty, but for scale, trust, and life-altering human outcomes. Long before generative Al became a trend, Honor was using machine learning to optimize care matches, reduce churn, and respond to the exploding demand for aging services. Its model has become a blueprint for a new wave of Al-powered rollups in traditional industries, what the VC world now calls "Al x legacy."

To extend this vision, Seth later spearheaded Honor's acquisition of Home Instead, combining cutting-edge technology with a trusted global care brand to redefine aging at home. Today, through Home lnstead's 1,200+ locations across six countries, more than 100,000 Care Pros deliver compassionate, technology-enabled support that helps older adults age well at home.

Prior to Honor, Seth co-founded Meebo, the web's first real-time messaging platform that reached nearly half of the U.S. internet users before being acquired by Google. At Google, he led development of Google Sign-In - if you're ever used Google to sign-in to a third party web site, you've used his product. A Yale alum, Seth began his career in IBM's Corporate Development Group.

Today, Seth is a trusted voice on the future of aging, the ethics of applied Al, future of aging policy, and scaling mission-driven companies. He mentors early-stage founders and remains deeply committed to tech that elevates human dignity.

 

CEO UK & International Home Instead

Martin’s role with Home Instead and his non-executive and Trustee roles (Chair of The Care Workers’ Charity; member of the Age UK and Homecare Association Boards; Chair of Home Instead Charities) place him in a unique position to understand the issues facing the social care sector and to campaign for change.

He has a particular interest in the integration of health and social care and the role our homes will play as the hospitals of the future. Martin is also an advocate of the need to professionalise care work.

Martin was awarded an MBE for services to older people.

 

Head of Research and Data Insights, Good Things Foundation

Katie is responsible for evolving the way Good Things Foundation understands the impact they are making: how many, who, how and the change that is happening. 

Katie’s expertise spans across many roles and sectors, where she has led projects and programmes that transform approaches to supporting people who are (digitally) excluded or have long term and life limiting health conditions.  Her approach to research and evaluation ensures that these populations are fully included and their needs are considered and amplified as a result of the research.

Katie Heard is Head of Research and Data Insights at Good Things Foundation.  She is responsible for evolving the way Good Things Foundation understands the impact they are making: how many, who, how and the change that is happening. 

Katie’s expertise spans across many roles and sectors, where she has led projects and programmes that transform approaches to supporting people who are (digitally) excluded or have long term and life limiting health conditions.  Her approach to research and evaluation ensures that these populations are fully included and their needs are considered and amplified as a result of the research.

 

Programme Director, Digital Care Hub

Michelle is the Programme Director at Digital Care Hub with responsibility for Better Security, Better Care – the multi award winning, national programme funded by DHSC, supporting all CQC registered adult social care providers in England to improve their data and cyber security. Michelle has spent 15 years in and alongside the social care sector and has an MSc in International Public Health. With a dynamic career blending digital transformation, service improvement and innovation in health and social care. Prior to joining the Digital Care Hub she was the Deputy Director of Service and Innovation at Family Action.

 

Co-chair, Kent County Council Adult Social Care Digital Group

Peter is a dedicated advocate for integrating technology into social care to enhance individuals' quality of life. As co-chair of Kent County Council's Adult Social Care Digital Group, Peter has been instrumental in shaping the Technology Enhanced Lives Service (TELS) in Kent, which empowers residents to live more independently and safely at home. 

Peter is an advocate for co-production, thinking positively and doing things differently in social care and health. He works tirelessly to amplify the voices of people that draw on care and support, and to demonstrate that everyone should have the opportunity to live their best life no matter their circumstances. Peter is passionate about ensuring that the social care and health workforce are working in collaboration with each other and find innovative, person-centred ways that empower (not inhibit) personal choice and control. He has contributed to a range of strategies, projects and plans that have shaped local adult social care provision.

Drawing from personal experience, Peter applies various technologies in his daily life, including smart home devices that allow him to control heating, lighting, and appliances, thereby increasing his autonomy. He believes that technology can significantly improve quality of life and credits it for enabling his active participation in leadership roles within social care initiatives

 

Co-Founder & Director, My Employment Ltd (ME Passport)

With nearly two decades of experience in health and social care, Carly has led innovations that simplify compliance and empower care workers through verified, portable employment data. ME Passport’s technology is reshaping how providers recruit, retain, and share workforce information—bridging the gap between frontline care and digital innovation.

Carly’s work is centered on building a sustainable, data-driven workforce model that reduces recruitment costs, strengthens safeguarding, and ensures compliance with CQC standards. Her leadership continues to drive forward-thinking partnerships across care, technology, and workforce reform.

 

Head of Sales, Feebris

Lola is Head of Sales at Feebris, a UK health-tech company enabling clinical-grade health checks and virtual care in community settings. She has spent her career bridging health and social care, previously in partnerships and key account roles at Birdie and in clinical research and training within the NHS (helping providers adopt technology that improves outcomes and reduces avoidable hospitalisation). At Feebris she works with ICBs, trusts and care providers to design and scale virtual wards and “virtual hospital” pathways, with a focus on usability for non-clinical teams, data quality, and measurable ROI.

 

Chief Marketing Officer, Nourish Care

Lee Gilbert is CMO at Nourish Care, a digital long term care planning platform where the person is at the centre. Lee has spent the last 5 years in Healthcare Technology in the UK and North America markets. For over 25 years she has built a proven track record building innovative business, particularly where there has been underserved needs, where her curiosity, desire to drive change and create measurable social impact has been fulfilled.

 

Senior Associate, Anthony Collins Solicitors

A commercial lawyer with more than 10 years’ experience specialising in the health and social care sectors. Emma advises homecare providers on their customer and supplier relationships, working across public, private and blended funding models. Often advising on tech & data, Emma helps providers to navigate their information governance arrangements, making sure their digital processes stand up to scrutiny from their customers and the ICO.

 

Sponsored Care Worker, HCA Healthcare UK (Primary Home Care)

Muhammad is a dedicated healthcare assistant with a passion for providing quality, compassionate care to individuals in need. He is passionate about improving care standards and advocating for frontline workers. Alongside Muhammad’s work in healthcare, he is also an entrepreneur in the facilities management sector, where his focus is on delivering reliable, efficient services that support safe and well-maintained environments. Muhammad’s experience reflects a strong commitment to both people and operational excellence.

nourishcare.com

Simplify sponsored worker hiring with end-to-end visa management. Take the stress out of visa processing. Borderless automates the process, ensures compliance, and keeps your team in control every step of the way.

 www.getborderless.co.uk

From digital rostering to electronic call monitoring, medication and task administration or recording mileage automatically, CareLineLive has a comprehensive set of features tailor-made for home care businesses.

carelinelive.com

www.reallycare.org

The UK's most trusted knowledge resource for tax & accounting, HR, and compliance professionals. Built by experts, for professionals, Croner-i supports thousands of businesses of all sizes achieve growth and maintain best practice. Our expert-led advice and tailored tools & templates streamline your workload whilst ensuring your business remains credible.

Access Lite version for free

Grow an exceptional care team, compliantly. We make it easy to find, onboard, sponsor and retain exceptional health and social care staff.

www.lifted-talent.com

 

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