With funding from vocational technology charity, the Ufi Trust, social care digital specialist Sara Dunn Associates partnered with learning technology provider, MyKnowledgeMap to develop Cuppacare: a micro-learning mobile application for domiciliary care workers. A service designer in digital social care for 20+ years, Sara wrote the first e-learning strategy for the sector as well as conducting the first national survey on digital skills in the care workforce. Combined with MyKnowledgeMap’s extensive experience developing learning technology within healthcare and medicine, the partnership brought a wealth of experience to the creation of Cuppacare. 

A simple and easy-to-use micro-learning app

Cuppacare is designed to provide frontline care workers with high quality, 3-10-minute learning courses known as ‘Sips’, a skills boost in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.  Consciously developed to help maximise learning opportunities and advance knowledge in a typically pressured and time-intensive work environment.

Alongside the Cuppacare mobile app, a unique Cuppacare Authoring Tool was developed to enable homecare providers to create and publish their own Sips.  In this way, homecare providers deploy their own guidance to staff mobile devices and monitor use, complementing and extending their existing staff training channels.

Examples of learning courses ready built into the Cuppacare app include:

• Practical infection control skills i.e. food safety, hand washing, removing gloves or PPE, date marks on food etc.
• Dementia and associated topics i.e. communication, help with food, positive interactions etc.
• Mental health support i.e. recognising and managing stress, breathing exercises etc.
• Recognising important clinical signs i.e. Parkinson’s, normal ageing, urine colour, abuse and neglect etc.

Piloting Cuppacare across the UK…

Cuppacare was initially piloted as a proof of concept with a large care provider, with support from Skills for Care’s government funded Workforce Development Innovation Fund.  The success of this pilot led to further funding from the Ufi Trust and University of Bath Innovation Centre. The large-scale field testing gathered in-depth user research and testing with over 200 users via surveys, interviews and online feedback tools.

Taking Support & Training to the Next Level…

Managers’ report that using Cuppacare complements and reinforces their other modes of training and skills development with small pieces of focused learning that staff can access on-the-job.  Meanwhile staff valued its convenience, accessibility and portability, reporting gains in knowledge, skills and confidence.  Users consistently gave a net promoter score of > 8.5 to the overall system, and an average 4.7 out of 5 stars for the usefulness and quality of the learning.

Cuppacare is currently being used by 26 early adopter organisations and has recently been endorsed by Skills for Care as a Quality Learning Provider, the first mobile app to receive this endorsement. CuppaCare is highly flexible in its use, as evidenced by customers beyond the core care providers.  The Cuppacare partners will continue to scale up delivery to care providers – including of vital on-the-job guidance for the COVID-19 pandemic – as well as widening the market to healthcare and beyond.

If you would like to learn more about the Cuppacare platform, visit www.cuppacare.com.