Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) were proud winners of the Digital Poverty DigiLeaders Impact Award on Wednesday 22 March 2023. The cross sector awards recognise people and teams leading the way in digital innovation.
The award recognises the Trust’s work to tackle digital poverty and reach the digitally excluded through the provision of digital technology in service user’s homes, and follows previous national recognition for the project, which also won the NHS Parliamentary Awards Future NHS category.
The enabling technology provided allows individuals to undertake video consultations and engage socially with family and friends; a KOMP is a screen with a single button that requires a low level of digital skill to operate, ideal for people who have not previously used any video calling technology. Also used was Kraydel Konnect which requires a slightly higher level of digital skill.
The project was delivered across a number of MPFT services, including its Staying Well Service and Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service, supported by MPFT’s Digital Skills and Business Change team and is a great example of a clinically led, digitally enabled piece of work. Clinical staff have developed their own knowledge and skills in digital technology to enable those who use their services to have the choice of accessing digital technology as part of their care.
The core focus of this work is to tackle digital poverty, but it has delivered many other benefits, including reducing travel which supports the Trust’s sustainability ambitions, reducing social isolation and supporting other themes within MPFT’s Digital Strategy, such as choice and access, digital inclusion and equalities, and digital skills and confidence.
MPFT is committed to being a key driver in tackling digital poverty locally, regionally and nationally, working in partnership with other NHS organisations, councils, third sector organisations and technology companies such as Curry’s. Martyn Perry, Deputy Chief Digital Information Officer / Director of Digital Transformation, also sits on the community board of the Digital Poverty Alliance to support the national direction in tackling digital poverty.
Joe Wickens, Digital Service Development Manager at MPFT said: “We are extremely proud of all the staff involved in this award win and all of those, across the organisation, working to continually find new ways to develop our services to ensure that they are inclusive and do not leave anyone behind.”
Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) is an integrated organisation that provides physical and mental health, learning disabilities and adult social care services. The majority of our services are delivered in Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin, but through Inclusion, part of our specialist care group, we cover much of England. We employ over 10,000 people across the country.
Useful Links
- MPFT’s Digital Strategy can be found here https://www.mpft.nhs.uk/digitalstrategy
- For more information on the DigiLeaders Impact Awards, visit https://www.impact-awards.co.uk/
- For more information on KOMP, visit https://www.noisolation.com/komp
- For more information on Kraydel Konnect, visit https://ukhealthcarepavilion.com/companies/kraydel-limited/
- For more information on the Digital Poverty Alliance, visit https://digitalpovertyalliance.org/