CareTech invests in Melo
CareTech has made a strategic investment in Melo, alongside follow-on investment from PXN Ventures and matched funding from Innovate UK. The funding will support Melo’s continued development, validation and growth.
CareTech has made a strategic investment in Decently, the company behind Melo.
PXN Ventures has also made a follow-on investment through the GMC Life Sciences Fund. Together, the two investments helped secure matched funding through Innovate UK’s Investor Partnerships programme.
The funding will support the next stage of Melo’s development, validation and growth, helping more clinical teams make better use of behavioural information in everyday care.
Why behavioural information is hard to use
Clinical teams already record a significant amount of information about behaviour, across observation charts, clinical notes and electronic records.
The problem is often what happens next.
When observations are recorded inconsistently or without enough structure, it becomes difficult to compare what is happening across shifts, recognise patterns and triggers, or show whether a change in care is making a difference.
Decisions about observation levels, care planning and discharge can then end up relying heavily on the most recent handover rather than the fuller picture over time.
Melo gives teams a structured way to record behavioural observations at the point of care and bring that information together over time, so clinicians can see patterns and use them alongside their own judgement and multidisciplinary discussion.
Evidence from current services
Melo has been evaluated across four separate care settings. The findings below come from service evaluations, workflow modelling and staff feedback within those settings.
Assessment time: workflow modelling in one high-volume independent neuro service found that a standard behavioural assessment took 1 minute 46 seconds using Melo, compared with 11 minutes 8 seconds on paper. With around 384 assessments completed each week, that equated to roughly 59 hours of staff time released.
Documentation accuracy: in a specialist neurorehabilitation hospital, documentation accuracy increased from 57% to 100% within fifteen days of Melo going live. A year later, 90% of staff were still actively using it.
Speed compared with an EPR: in the same hospital, 78% of staff rated Melo much faster than their existing electronic record for recording behaviour. None rated it slower.
Enhanced observations: on one NHS acute ward, night-time bank spend associated with enhanced observations fell by 43%, with the team using Melo to review behavioural risk more promptly.
Supporting the next stage of Melo
The investment will support further development and validation of Melo as its use grows across NHS and independent care.
Melo is currently used across acute NHS wards, specialist neurorehabilitation hospitals and independent complex care services, supporting people living with dementia, acquired brain injury, neuro-disability and behaviours that challenge.
As part of the partnership, CareTech Business Development Director Zak Sheikh has also joined the Decently Board.
Haroon Sheikh, Group CEO, and Farouq Sheikh, Group Executive Chairman of CareTech, said:
“Our decision to invest in Decently was driven by what we saw in Melo itself. The platform is already demonstrating measurable benefits for clinical teams through improved efficiency, stronger documentation and better visibility of behavioural information.”
James Burch, Co-founder of Decently, said:
“Information that helps teams understand complex behaviour is recorded inconsistently, lacks structure, and is rarely turned into meaningful action. Melo enables frontline teams to capture clinically meaningful observations of challenging and positive behaviours at the point of care, using gold-standard measures, and translate them into clear, actionable insight the whole team can act on. CareTech’s investment will help us accelerate this mission: empowering more teams to deliver evidence-led, person-centred support and advancing our ambition to reach 10 million patients, families and clinicians worldwide over the next decade.”
What happens next
We’re building Melo for the whole sector, across NHS trusts and independent providers.
The funding gives us more capacity to develop and validate the product as we work with clinical teams in different care settings. We’ll share more of that work, and the evidence behind it, as it develops.
If you already use Melo and have questions about what the investment means for your service, speak to your usual Melo contact.
