By 
Hi, I’m Emma Harding, and I thought it would be good to introduce myself and let you know a little bit more about and what led me to start up PocketCarer. I’ve always been passionate about my work in the healthcare sector, and it’s that passion that essentially led me to where I am now – CEO and founder of PocketCarer; an all-in-one business management app for self-employed carers.
PocketCarer offers you so much more in one app
Why do I think PocketCarer stands out from the crowd? I didn’t create it to be another ‘faceless’ business tool to download, but as a constantly evolving platform, developed by myself and a carefully selected professional team of experienced carers and experts. Our prime aim for PocketCarer is to be the number one all-round app for self-employed carers to simplify and streamline their business, offer support and advice, and gain a better work/life balance. After all, we all know that care as a career, although highly rewarding, can be incredibly tough; mentally, physically, and emotionally.
Taking the leap to self-employed carer
I’ve worked in the healthcare sector for over 20 years now, but it was only 5 years ago that I finally decided to take the leap into becoming a self-employed carer. Why did I make that leap? Well, I’d been working through care agencies, and I wanted more control of my work life – who I worked for, what hours I worked, flexibility with holidays and days off, and more control over my salary – to name just a few benefits! However, I found in order to run my self-employed carer business effectively, there were a number of things I needed to get on top of, such as income and expenditure tracking, contract templates, client invoicing, risk assessments – and all this meant using an old-fashioned paper-based filing system or, downloading and paying for numerous subscriptions for apps which I ended up not making full use of. As a self-employed carer, many of the professional software packages that agencies used were not available to me.
And then, two and a half years ago in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit us…
Sowing the seeds for PocketCarer
It was during that first lockdown that I had the time to start thinking about the perfect app and everything it would offer me as a self-employed carer. I started to write down lists, I outsourced a software company to create the tech, and a very steep learning curve began. There were a lot of trials and errors, but, that first year was invaluable in learning everything I needed to. The next year things really started to come together. I hired a new and better app building company, created a much more cohesive and stronger project spec and business plan to work from, and started to outsource a strong development team to bring their areas of expertise to the table, enabling me to finally integrate my plans into a reality. It’s been a hard, but hugely rewarding process.
Join our Facebook Group and become part of the PocketCarer community
As I said, PocketCarer is already making many self-employed carers’ lives easier, and it is constantly evolving. Our PocketCarer website publishes weekly articles and news on relevant topics for our carer community, You can also follow us on instagram, we have a Facebook page with articles and news, and a PocketCarer Facebook group where our subscribers can discuss subjects together, and give us ideas for topics they would like to read more about, as well as highlighting new features coming to the app – such as our soon to be launched Teams feature which will enable groups to safely and securely share information on clients they split care of, such as for holiday cover etc (more about this exciting new feature soon!) We are also building up partnerships and connections with other companies, communities and experts, to ensure that we can bring you up to date content, advice and support, and help make useful links to help drive your self-employed carer business in the direction you want to take it.
Contact us direct for any queries
PocketCarer was developed by experienced carers for self-employed carers, and we value your feedback. We want to continue to develop the app and website taking on board ideas and comments which you, as a self-employed carer want and need to make your life simpler. So, if you have any queries or comments, our customer care team will respond to you personally within 24 hours (usually a lot sooner), so please don’t hesitate to contact us on [email protected]
Download the PocketCarer app FREE today
