What is the positive change that has emerged through new collaborations or partnerships during Covid-19 that your project is going to embed?

Covid-19 social distancing further isolated the vulnerable and lonely as well as distancing supporting organisations meaning that alternative communications needed to be found.

Citizens with Experience (www.cwe.solutions) collaborated with the patient engagement/communication Blue Moon Radio digital platform from www.memorytracks.co.uk (based on the shared experience of music), bringing a method of communication that can be adapted and personalised at scale between organisations, from organisations to patients and between people, maintaining existing and creating new connections.

As social distancing increased isolation became normalised, but in care homes with the platform “we have residents coming down to reception area to actually listen and talk about the tracks it gives a consistent ambiance to reception and has opened up so many more conversations”. This effect can be replicated in any environment.

The creation of collaborative connectivity creating engagement, information transfer and bonding between organisations, patients and supporters are key impacts to achieve.

What does your project aim to achieve?

We will catalyse and support, sustained regenerative connectivity between people, particularly in vulnerable communities impacted by Covid-19 and dramatically reduce social isolation, loneliness, by enabling personal connections through a shared experience, needs/wants approach.

Augmenting the existing Blue Moon Radio platform (trialling successfully in care homes) we will extend the service in communities such as those using GPs, domiciliary care providers and Social Services using the Memory Tracks model.

We will add personal messaging, clinical advice, medication reminders, appointments, care visit and movement alerts into the current platform, and connect these with their existing and new networks to bring communication and advice to the isolated.

Communicating essential and wanted information will build stronger communities at all scales, break down the feeling of isolation, particularly in vulnerable and excluded communities, and will contribute to reducing health inequalities. The platform can be adapted to fit with different communities, and cultural groups as required.

How will the project be delivered?

CWE designers will work with Memory Tracks (www.memorytracks.co.uk) building on their existing Blue Moon Radio platform to create greater reach, engagement and information transfer testing and iterating in partnership with a GP Surgery and Domiciliary care provider before deploying elsewhere.

We will select a cohort of users, with the engagement of their GP, care support, and family where appropriate to design the initial project variables.

Evaluation will be through a pre-install review of each pilot member, interviews from the GP, family members and stakeholders to create a benchmark using wellbeing and other metrics to evaluate the project, working remotely as appropriate, with regular staff platform training, questionnaires and video-interviews.

CWE uses democratised person-centred-design to include all stakeholders in evolving the platform collaboratively during the pilot.

The risks are manageable; we already have the technology platform working and licences in place.

How is your project going to share learning?

The continuous collaborative approach to the project will provide ongoing feedback on the project which can be shared with Q members to encourage engagement and collaboration and will look for partnering with the membership, especially GPs and those who share the need of what we are doing.

It is important to us that the innovations are developed in collaboration with the Q network, supporting a regenerative future for patients and providers to accelerate our collective learning. To enable this we will collect anonymised data from GPs, Social services and families and share with members in appropriate ways.

Memory Tracks published the initial research in the Journal of Healthcare Engineering and will use the same rigour and process in publishing the project findings so that they can be shared widely. CWE will use its research base to broaden dissemination and collaboration.