Member Article

Wimbledon social entrepreneur startup secures £1.5m to provide outings for vulnerable adults

Social enterprise business, Oomph! Wellness, has secured £1.5m in funding to help support the roll-out of its ‘Out and About’ service, an outing service for older and vulnerable adults.

Barchester Healthcare Founder, Mike Parsons, has contributed to the funding round, along with the Care and Wellbeing Fund and Nesta Impact Investment as part of the Wimbledon-based firm’s £4m roll-out across five UK regions.

Founded by Ben Allen, Oomph has developed its outings service following a successful pilot, providing regular outings to care homes and other services for a flat fee beginning at £160 per excursion.

With social care services increasingly cash strapped in the UK, Its key provision is the ability to offer outings to organisations or services who would not currently be able to afford them themselves.

Outling his vision, Oomph!’s founder Ben Allen said: “The Out and About model radically reduces the cost and effort of running outings for care services. We are effectively helping services in an area to club together to achieve economies of scale whilst each still gets exclusive outings for their residents.”

“Care home owners have told me of their dismay for residents who’ve not been outside for months. I just can’t accept that so many vulnerable people are stuck indoors due to public funding pressures.”

As a result of this latest funding, the company is set to increase minibus fleet, which is set to stand at 80 by the end of this year, to 300 by 2020 when it hopes to be supporting half a million journeys nationwide.

Mike Parsons, who has personally invested £300 of his own cash in the business, believes the service is a ‘no brainer’ for increasingly straitened care services and added: “Out & About excursions will significantly enhance the offering of providers currently unable to afford regular day trips and provide a much savvier option for those burdened with the costs and logistical issues involved in running their own outings.”

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