Care Marketplace Update

RNS Number : 4453B

Cloudbuy PLC

04 March 2014

cloudBuy plc ("cloudBuy" or "the Company")

Care Marketplace Update

cloudBuy (AIM: CBUY), the cloud eCommerce marketplace, announces that it has been awarded a Care Marketplace contract by Staffordshire County Council.

CCA Annual Conference

The CCA Annual Conference, held last weekend, highlighted the cloudBuy's success in the emerging care market with councillors from 3 major counties explaining why their council choose cloudBuy as the best solution.

The Local Government security session, was introduced by Brandon Lewis MP, Parliamentary Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and summarised by Ronald Duncan, Chairman of cloudBuy.  He identified the following key points emerging from the Cyber Security for Local Councillors session:

·     Some councils are being pushed into spending huge amounts on unnecessary levels of security when the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is constantly reducing budgets and asking councils to cut costs.

·     Central Government departments are saving substantial amounts using g-cloud e.g. cloudBuy's provision of a cloud hosted intranet, allowing a 'bring your own device policy', and councils are not taking advantage of g-cloud.

·     Councillors are advised to be very careful about using Social Media in political debate, as shown by the case in Margate where a Councillor has been interviewed by police under caution after liking a post on Facebook.

The following Care Bill session was introduced by Dr Daniel Poulter MP, Parliamentary Under-secretary for Health Services. The impact of the Care Bill was summarised by Ronald Duncan. Key points identified were:

·     Dr Daniel Poulter MP highlighted the £3.8 billion Integration Transformation Fund pooled budget that is going to be jointly managed by Councils and the NHS through the Health and Wellbeing boards to deliver improved local care, and how joint working will improve peoples lives and save significant amounts of money.

·     Cllr Alan White, Staffordshire County Council Cabinet member for Care outlined the challenge of over 240,000 people that will be requiring care by 2033 against the tens of thousands that currently receive council services.

·     Cllr Colette Wyatt-Lowe, Hertfordshire County Council Cabinet member for Care and chair of the Health and Wellbeing board explained the benefits that Hertfordshire had achieved by implementing the cloudBuy care marketplace.

·     Cllr Robin Brown, Northamptonshire County Council Cabinet member for Care and chair of the Health and Wellbeing board described how Northamptonshire are addressing the challenges with cloudBuy.

All of the speakers emphasised the importance of helping people to manage their own care at the earliest possible point, so that they enjoy the best possible quality of life and control over their environment, and the fact that this is much cheaper as well.

Ronald Duncan, Chairman of cloudBuy, commented:

"We are delighted that Staffordshire has awarded us with the contract for its Care Marketplace.  This is a very exciting project that will enable Staffordshire to deliver true Personalisation to individuals whether they are funded by the local authority or privately funded. At a time of ageing populations and reduced budgets, our cloudBuy care technology delivers significant improvements in care at reduced cost for both care providers and councils.

 "We are also pleased that two ministers have highlighted the importance of security and care for Local Authorities, as there is a major opportunity for authorities to save money and to improve services. The key to this is opening up the self-funding market, and cloudBuy is in a strong position to help, as the only e-commerce provider in the market."

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About cloudBuy PLC

cloudBuy, formerly @UK, is the world's leading transactional Cloud Platform.

cloudBuy has used the platform to build the world leading B2B ecommerce and eprocurement applications which address the full range of buying and selling activities, in an easy to use web and mobile experience.  Along with other cloud based applications including Content Management, email and big data analysis.

The applications have already managed over $ 500 billion of spend and are being used by leading organisations around the world to deliver savings and improved services.

The applications are unique in delivering correct pricing in the complex world of B2B whilst being easy enough to use that the people with difficulties can use the system to buy their own social and health care.

For more information, visit www.cloudbuy.com

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The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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