Australia has long been an ambition of Josh, CareLineLive’s Managing Director. He recognised quite early on the similarities between our home base in the UK and Australia when it comes to how social care is structured and delivered. We’ve had customers in Australia for a number of years now, who have been benefitting from some of the features that we offer that are unique for the market; however we soon realised that the funding structures are very different between the two countries.
In the UK, publicly funded care is quite fragmented. Typically local authorities will be tasked with the delivery of social care services to their constituents and there is little social care that is funded by a state-level institution.
Conversely, in Australia there are a number of federal level funding initiatives that are much more mature technologically than we have in the UK. When addressing the feature gap between the two markets, our initial focus is going to be on making sure we give care providers in Australia the tools needed to ensure they are compliant with the different funding schemes that a care recipient may be a participant of.
The funding schemes themselves are complex, and riddled with intricacies that make it difficult for care providers in Australia to keep a handle on.
Insights from our Product Manager
I spent a day interviewing various CareLineLive staff recently and this included a session with our Product Manager, Sean Orrell. Sean has been heading up the development of CareLineLive to better fit the requirements of the Australian market. You can read the full interview below and also watch the edited highlights in our video.
What challenges have you faced in scaling the software for the Australian market?
Expanding CareLineLive into the Australian market has presented several challenges, but we’ve approached them with determination and adaptability. There are many small differences, as trivial as different usage of terminology ranging to the non-trivial, such as building an understanding about regulations that were previously completely foreign to us.
The first challenge is locality. With Australia being on the other side of the world, engaging with local experts and our customer base has often required early mornings or late nights. However, despite the time zone differences, we’ve remained committed to building strong relationships and understanding the market’s needs.
The second challenge is regulatory changes. The Australian Aged Care and Disability sector is currently undergoing significant shifts, particularly in funding programmes and compliance requirements. Navigating these evolving regulations while designing a solution that remains both effective and adaptable has been a complex but rewarding challenge.
Despite these hurdles, we are excited about the opportunities in Australia and remain focused on delivering a solution that meets the unique needs of care providers in the region.
How is the product being developed for the Australian market?
To develop CareLineLive for the Australian market, we began with a comprehensive gap analysis, comparing our UK feature set against the specific requirements in Australia. This helped us identify key areas for development.
The first major area is funding management. Australia’s domiciliary care funding model differs significantly from the UK, placing greater responsibility on service providers. To address this, we have been developing a robust funding management platform, starting with Home Care Packages (HCP) and planning to incorporate Commonwealth Home Support Programme (CHSP) and Support at Home (SaH) in the future.
The second area is Award Interpretation. Australia has a highly complex set of regulations, known as ‘awards,’ that govern employee pay. To ensure compliance, we have integrated with a local award engine provider, enabling accurate payroll processing based on these regulations.
Finally, beyond product functionality, we recognise the importance of local expertise. To strengthen our presence, we are working to establish a dedicated team in Australia to support our regional manager and better serve our customers.
By addressing these areas, we are ensuring that CareLineLive is well-equipped to meet the unique needs of the Australian market.
What about CareLineLive staff on the ground in Australia?
We already have a regional manager, Elena Neale, who is based in Australia and knows the aged care sector really well. We’re also taking the steps towards building a local team that is based in Australia who will be immersed in the sector over there and have an opportunity to focus solely on what matters for aged care. We’re currently recruiting a development team but eventually we also plan to have a locally based support team too. That will enable us to provide support (between our US and Australian customer support teams) 24 hours a day and five days a week for all our customers.
