What is the challenge your project is going to address and how does it connect to the theme of 'How can improvement be used to reduce delays accessing health and care services'?

Coming into a Secure Ward can be overwhelming, especially for anyone with Autism. This app will provide a digitalized welcome pack,  as an animated storyboard, i.e. day-to-day activities, on-site catering details/menu’s, therapeutic interventions that they may be able to access on discussion with their care coordinator/clinician e.g. a view of the Ward, look and feel pre-admission – by offering a 360 degree virtual tour of the ward, a standard room and communal areas and wayfinding. It will also provide a view on meals served for the next few weeks – potentially allowing meal bookings – providing a level of certainty. Part of the App will also provide be used to support people post admission, by offering therapies. This App would be held on a SABP tablet.

What does your project aim to achieve?

The objective of this project is to provide as much certainty as possible, to people about to enter our secure wards, potentially at a time of worry and stress. We aim to improve our service, by identifying areas, that will at minimum, improve any inequalities, by showing them what the ward looks like, via a 360 degree virtual tour of the unit, e.g. offering a view of the look and feel of a standard room on the ward. On top of that, we want to paint a picture of the types of food offered, what the meal-times are and what other activities are offered on a week-by-week basis – potentially offering the ability to book meals. Part of the App will offer a personalised activity planner, which can be tracked by clinicians and patients, offering joined up care across the health and care system.

How will the project be delivered?

We are fortunate to be able to call on a great technical team, that have experience of delivering App’s of a similar nature and we have already tapped into them regarding this idea and have received very positive feedback in regard to the ‘do-ability’ of the ask, along with the team already having the foundations of the App ready to go, which will reduce the time and cost to deliver. We will approach the Project by liaising with Clinicians and storyboarding how the App will work, look & feel and putting their feedback into the Alpha Phase of the project, then feeding back to them during the Beta trial before finally having them sign-off before we hand the App into service

How is your project going to share learning?

We will capture all Clinician feedback and Project issues in the Project RAID and Feedback Log, during the Alpha and Beta Phases, which we will share with Q Members in real-time, providing more value to members, rather than presenting post Project. We will also hold Monthly meetings with Clinicians during the Beta and post Go-Live phases of the project, to make relevant changes in approach, or content of the App, especially Post Go-Live, where Clinical feedback on the App and how it’s being received by patients and what positive impacts the App has provided – this will be shared to Q Members and the wider community.