Social prescribing technology company Elemental Software has announced a £1.2m investment in R&D and new jobs in Derry.
It's been a good year for Derry-based SME Elemental Software, the developer of an innovative platform for social prescribing and consultation. Social prescribing is a supplementary channel to normal medical interventions in improving patient wellbeing, and involves GPs connecting patients to community support services, volunteer organisations, and social enterprises that can help them.
The company got an initial R&D investment back in 2017 to develop its social prescribing platform, and it's turned out to be needed more than ever during the pandemic when people needed access to mental health support. The company has seen a 66% rise in revenue over the past year, and it now plans to expand
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Elemental Software has now announced that it's investing £1.2m in a significant expansion. Invest NI has offered £317,810 of support towards the company's R&D project, the creation of eight jobs, and marketing activities. The eight new jobs are already in place.
The firm was recently awarded a place on the new GPIT NHS framework, making its services available for use to NHS organisations within primary care responsibilities. It hopes to win new supply contracts through this framework, break the £5m revenue barrier, and expand into new territories globally. It has also been awarded a Platinum Level Innovator Certificate from Innovate NI.
Co-founder and CEO and Jennifer Neff commented: "We also hope to increase our turnover from £1m to £5m over the next three years. This is ambitious but our research has shown us that social prescribing is an evolving market globally and many opportunities exist in countries such as RoI, Nordics, Canada and Australia."
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Leeann Monk, Co-Founder and COO, said: "Following an initial investment in R&D in 2017, our technology can make it easier for health and social care professionals to refer people with health risks such as mental health, to community based lifestyle interventions. This type of referral can reduce demand in GP time and ultimately keep people out of hospital for longer. This is imperative for global health services to operate and as public health budgets worldwide are coming under increasing pressures due to COVID-19, social prescribing has been identified as a growing sector."
Source: Written based on press release
