The UK home care system is fundamentally misaligned with the people it is meant to serve. A model intended to provide reliability and peace of mind is, in reality, structured in a way where families pay premium rates but have little control over who delivers care. Oftentimes, patients receive a rotating cast of carers chosen by an agency rather than themselves. This lack of continuity comes at a premium. Families pay high rates, but a significant portion goes toward agency margins rather than caregiver compensation.
“The biggest problem is that traditional agencies were built around the agency’s convenience and not the families,” says Bruno Ceccolini, Co-Founder of Match with Care. “Families describe their situation, and then a care coordinator assigns a random carer. You don’t choose them, and they often change week by week.” The result is a system where neither side is fully satisfied: families feel overcharged, while carers are under-incentivized. In a setting where relationships are central to quality care, that disconnect is becoming harder to ignore.
The Structural Gap Between Cost and Care Quality
The breakdown in home care is in how that care is structured and who holds control. Families enter the system expecting support, but instead encounter a model where key decisions are made on their behalf, often with limited visibility into who is providing care and why. “There’s a conflict of interest,” says Ceccolini. “The rates families pay cover mostly the agency’s margins, not the carer’s time.”
This creates instability. Carers rotate frequently, relationships fail to form, and families are left managing uncertainty during already stressful circumstances. For live-in or long-term care, this model clashes with reality. “You want someone who understands routines, culture, personality. The relationship is super important,” Ceccolini adds. The system, however, continues to prioritize availability and logistics over compatibility and continuity.
Reducing Friction Through Technology and Direct Matching
Ceccolini’s background in healthcare software and digital health shaped how he approached the problem. Where agencies focus on scheduling, compliance, and rostering, he saw an opportunity to rethink the experience from the user’s perspective. “In tech, you’re always trying to reduce friction,” he says. “Here, families are blocked from directly accessing carers. That barrier benefits the agency, but it makes the experience worse for everyone else.”
Designing for healthcare users requires balancing control with simplicity, especially in high-stakes environments where decisions carry emotional and medical consequences. Match with Care addresses this by enabling families to browse vetted carers, compare profiles, and make informed choices. The platform mirrors familiar digital experiences while adapting to the complexity of care delivery teams and clinical workflows. “Families should be the ones in control of who they hire,” Ceccolini says.
Designing Trust Into High-Stakes Experiences
Trust remains the defining factor in any care decision, and transparency alone is not enough, particularly when it comes to user experience (UX) in high-stakes environments. “Digital and transparent doesn’t automatically mean safe,” he says. “Some marketplaces let anyone post a profile with no vetting. That puts families at risk.”
To address this, Match with Care builds trust through structured safeguards. Every carer undergoes interviews, background checks, and reference verification. Families can view detailed profiles and conduct interviews before making a decision and trial periods help to further reduce risk. This perspective reflects a deeper understanding of how developers approach healthcare UX. “Families feel like they’ve made an informed choice rather than having it made for them,” Ceccolini says.
Scaling Care Delivery Beyond the Agency Model
The shift toward private carers is a response to structural limitations in the existing system. According to Ceccolini, the demand is already clear, but the infrastructure has yet to catch up. With millions of unpaid carers across the UK, the pressure on formal care systems continues to rise.
“The agency model is not scalable to the demand,” he says. “The private model can scale, but the infrastructure needs to improve.” Two changes are critical. First, more carers must see independent work as a viable path, offering better pay and autonomy. Second, families must develop confidence in platforms that provide both transparency and reliability. Technology plays a central role in enabling this transition. Automating administrative processes and improving matching systems are essential to designing around clinical workflow complexity and ensuring consistent care delivery.
A More Human Approach to Care
Families often enter the care system under pressure, making quick decisions with limited information. “It’s an emotional decision,” he says. “Families panic and choose what seems safest, even if they’re overpaying for lower quality care.” The mission behind Match with Care is to rebalance that equation. By shifting value toward carers and giving families greater control, the model aims to deliver both better outcomes and better experiences. As the sector evolves, the question is no longer whether change is coming, but whether the systems in place are ready to support it.
To learn more about Match with Care, follow the founders Bruno Ceccolini and Nicholas Richard Castro on LinkedIn or visit their website.
