Aylesbury-based Care & Carers Ltd has recently been rewarded by the advertising arm of British telecommunications company, Sky, for their achievements within the social care industry, despite facing challenges following the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic.

Whilst UK businesses are adapting their working practises due to the current climate, Sky Media has been identifying and rewarding 100 independent businesses with 30 days free TV advertising to help further encourage their business growth over the coming months.

We’re always committed to kindness and helping most vulnerable members of our community! #COVIDー19 pic.twitter.com/OGZeiKOugu

— Care & Carers (@careandcarers) March 14, 2020

Care & Carers Ltd – a health and social care business which helps to provide companies and patients with local, reliable and fully trained care staff and services – approached the University’s Innovation & Enterprise Service (IES) seeking academic business assistance with their IT platforms.

In response, Dr Ali Mansour, Senior Lecturer in Computing and Information Systems, was chosen to provide commercial consultancy for the company due to his specialism in Cybersecurity, with a focus on IT risks, data compliance and ‘cloud’ storage.

The business also sought advice around grant applications and mitigating business risks and so IES facilitated the hire of a Cybersecurity graduate, who worked on the security aspect of the Care & Carers Ltd’s software, enabling the business to extend the reach of their software and improve efficiency of other social care providers across the region.

Reflecting on his consultancy work, Dr Mansour said: “A data vulnerability assessment was required and GDPR was one of the key areas discussed in-depth, as the business continuously deals with sensitive patient information. This sort of data requires a much higher level of security and privacy, so I recommended they implement vital cyber security measures, to mitigate any potential risks.”

Dr Mansour added: “I want to extend my sincere congratulations to Hossein and his team for their recent award wins and marketing reward from Sky Media. I wish Care & Carers Ltd continued success in the future.”

Since working with the University, Care & Carers Ltd has successfully won three awards – the Buckinghamshire Business Award in Digital Innovation, SME2020 Silver Award in Business Innovation and SME2020 Silver Award in the Best New Business category.

Hossein Sharifi, Director of Care & Carers Ltd, said: “Since the Covid19 pandemic began, our web traffic has increased by around 20% and so the consultancy provided by University of Bedfordshire has proved vital to our digital way of working.

“The measures and security we were advised to implement also allowed us to offer our multi award-winning IT platform, Careberry, for other care providers to utilise.”

Every year the University of Bedfordshire collaborates with hundreds of companies nation-wide, as part of a multi-million pound knowledge exchange effort established between local authorities, Innovate UK and other industry initiatives.

The University boasts a track record for providing practical advice, guidance and assistance in problem-solving for commercial and societal benefit. For more information about the variety of business support projects available, please visit: www.beds.ac.uk/ies/we-mean-business/