Birdie

Are you a Registered Manager of a scaling business? Are you managing a home care service where you can't control every decision? Do you feel stretched between holding your standard and trusting your team? We’re hosting a FREE event for Registered Managers in exactly your position. Real conversations with people navigating the same dilemma. 6-8:30pm, 30th September, central London Apply here: https://hubs.la/Q04sWKx70

Great afternoon at the 5K Jumpstart run in Battersea Park last night 🏃 Thanks to the organisers for putting together such a well-run event and lovely to see so many other scaling companies out there too 💙 Didn't expect an eclipse, but we'll take it. ☀️

We surveyed 122 providers this spring to find out whether they use AI, and what they use it for. 62% took AI up to improve care quality - and 76% say quality has improved since. The paperwork has not kept up with this shift however. 32% of agencies have no formal policy at all for AI usage. Most worryingly, 12% have not considered whether to tell clients and families that AI is involved in their care. If AI is in use anywhere in your agency, even if that is one person drafting job adverts in ChatGPT, a written policy and a disclosure line are the two cheapest things to fix this month. The full breakdown of what agencies use, what it saves them and where they want it to go next: https://lnkd.in/eHD8VZsP

Eunice Mwale from Love Hands Care came away from our Birmingham Winning Private Client session with a clear plan and a network who got it. On 24 September, we're heading to Winchester to help you do the same. This time we're covering SEO, paid ads, using AI, and how to communicate what makes your service different. All free for domiciliary care providers using code: BIRDIEWPC4 Sign up here: https://hubs.la/Q04sd0zX0

Johanna Barlow has a key role in determining which AI tooling is ready for social care organisations, and which could do more harm than good. She's the Product Lead at Birdie, delivering secure AI tools in our own platform. This coming Wednesday she shares her knowledge on where AI is effective for care today, what's next on the roadmap, and what's being potentially 'oversold' to homecare businesses. If you've recently purchased or are considering rolling out AI tooling across the organisation, this is a valuable session that gives a clear framework for sorting care-ready tooling and marketing hype. Session two of the virtual Birdie AI Summer School coming up this Wednesday 12 August, 12–1pm on Zoom. Free to attend but spaces are limited. Book a spot here: https://lnkd.in/eqh-eK-f

70% of homecare providers are already using AI. Only two-thirds have a written policy governing it. For a care group running multiple branches, that gap rarely sits in one place. It sits everywhere at once. A coordinator in one branch using ChatGPT to draft care plans. A manager in another pasting client notes into a free tool with no data processing agreement. None of it visible from the top, and all of it your organisation's accountability if the regulator asks. The CQC published its first AI guidance in May 2026 and is now piloting frameworks for assessing how providers use it. Responsible use is becoming something you're expected to evidence, not just state. Getting ahead of that doesn't need a working group or a six-month project. It needs one consistent set of policies your whole organisation can actually follow. That's what we built the AI Governance Toolkit to give you. Seven ready-to-use documents, including a vendor assessment checklist, a full AI policy, and a board one-pager that brings your leadership team up to speed in one read. Download the toolkit for free here: https://lnkd.in/ePcMigyX

Our AI Summer School comes out of research Birdie ran earlier this year: a survey across UK homecare providers about how they use AI. 70% are already using it, most since before 2025. But a third have nothing written down about how AI is used in their agency, or how to optimise it's use beyond time saving. The series is built to help with that. Three free lunchtime sessions, each taking a finding from the research and turning it into something practical. The third session looks at how AI can be used as a strategic asset to improve processes at scale. - What AI can actually do in a care agency right now, and what it can't (12 August) - AI strategy for care leaders, beyond the quick wins (26 August) - Session one, 10 ways to ruin your care business with AI, is recorded and available now. Every session is free, on Zoom, 12–1pm. Register and we'll send you the recording, whether or not you make it live. Places are limited. Register: https://lnkd.in/eTuW-rMw Read the research: https://lnkd.in/eSQUpq_A

"AI can't do everything. Sometimes you have to close your own window." An unplanned moment in session one of the Birdie AI Summer School that sums up the aim of the series. Much of the AI guidance for care agencies at the moment sounds like vague cautioning or overblown hype. The Birdie AI Summer School aims to provide clarity, reassurance and strategic guidance for leaders in care. Session two covers: - Which tasks can be safely handed to AI today - Which technologies are promising but need careful implementation - What potentially dangerous marketing hype looks like You'll leave with a concrete three-question test for deciding which tasks in your own business AI can now fully support. Johanna Barlow, Product Lead at Birdie and host of this session, will be honest about where our own features sit too. 📅 Wednesday 12 August, 12–1pm on Zoom. Free, and everyone who registers gets the recording. Register here, spaces are limited: https://lnkd.in/eqh-eK-f

Running a care business leaves almost no time to work on how you actually lead. That was the whole reason we built The Leadership Lunch Club. This summer, managers, directors and owners from home care agencies across the UK came together for four fortnightly virtual workshops with leadership coach Alexis Neighbour PCC. Alexis is a former Home Instead franchise owner and Registered Manager who knows this world from the inside out. Birdie provided the platform; Alexis provided expertise, coaching and tools. Every session ran on real conversation: small-group discussion, leaders taking the mic to work through their own challenges, and a private community on Flock keeping it going in between. The arc was deliberate. → How to spot when you're in too deep with the day-to-day → Learning to delegate and actually trust the team → Having the difficult conversations you keep putting off → Making sense of and owning your own leadership style Our sector asks an enormous amount of the people who lead its teams, and rarely gives them the space to grow into it. For four Tuesdays, that space existed. A huge thank you to Alexis for her generosity, her honesty and her expertise across the series. We're already thinking about what comes next, so keep an eye out. And if you'd like to work with Alexis directly, you'll find her at her own page and at Franchise Coach UK