Advo-cake

Someone, who will remain nameless, has asked me to write their business plan for a 'dragon's den' application for an innovative bakery idea they've got up their sleeve. Anyway to make a short story extremely long, I've been trying to think of how I would make their innovative cakes (I haven't been let on to the actual invention so I could be totally wrong on that to start with) fit in with my business ethics. This happened to coincide with a meeting I attended in a professional capacity. What I learnt (well, more reinforced what I already knew) at this meeting is that care is absolutely shocking for those people with 'complex' needs at home. What happens if you have multiple scelorosis, motor neurone disease or Alzheimers is that you're effectively fending for yourself. Nobody, for example is prepared to feed these people, apart from their relatives. The District Nurses are (allegedly) only willing to replace bandages, Home Care workers do the hoovering. 'Feeding' is part of the grey area between personal care, health care, domicilliary care and home care. Money isn't the issue. It's just how it's organised. I was suitably livid after discussing this for a while and was thinking of how I could possibly persuade the Dragons to give me loads of dosh to solve this problem and combine it with my friend's application. And I came up with 'Advo-cake'. It would combine advocacy with cakes. Poor people would be able to get a home-delivered cake in return for a nominal sum (say £1) a week. Then they could upgrade if they wanted to a sort of Car Breakdown Service for themselves where they get an emergency advocate to see them if they get a 'long term condition'. For the £1 a week service we'd be able to keep an eye on people and slip in the odd leaflet informing them of how the system works.

Anyway, business was never really my strong point. Or cakes. I might retract the business plan idea, especially as we've got so much on at the moment.