WiFi SPARK Increases Charity Exposure at The Royal Free Hospital

The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust is one of the UK's biggest Trusts, caring for more than 1.6 million patients, with over 10,000 staff members.

The Trust has been a customer of Hospedia Ltd for more than 15 years. After WiFi SPARK acquired the company, collaboration began with Royal Free in 2021, where the provision of SPARK® Connect — the free guest-access WiFi — was installed throughout the site.

Patients, visitors and staff members can enjoy safe, secure, and unlimited browsing from their chosen devices. Once connected, the user is redirected to WiFi SPARK's post-authentication page, SPARK® Media: Lite — a service included for every SPARK® Connect customer.

The power of SPARK® Media: Lite

SPARK® Media: Lite is an entertainment delivery platform that offers a library of games, digital magazines and newspapers, radio, TV, NHS videos and more, for free, to patients, visitors and staff members accessible over the WiFi. 

As the platform is completely customisable to each Trust, they can choose to deploy additional services onto their portal, such as patient surveys, polls, hospital and Trust news, and the option for charity banners displayed on the homepage, as well as any logos and Trust-related imagery.

SPARK® Media is available once the patient has signed on to the hospital's guest-access WiFi. After registration, the patient is welcomed by a page specifically designed for the Royal Free Charity; promoting the charity's activities and encouraging donations. The user can close this and then navigate to a trust-specific URL where SPARK® Media and all of the above content is located, all entirely personalised for the Trust and its patients. 

The customisation has proven to be very popular with our customers, particularly those who work with charities. Their presence on a Trust-wide patient engagement platform ensures they can increase awareness, expand their community and get people involved, which may not have been possible before. 

Royal Free London has experienced this with their own charity, Royal Free Charity (RFC), since having guest-access WiFi and SPARK® Media: Lite.

Glenn Winteringham, Group Chief Digital Officer at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust says:

"The charity took more donations in the first six weeks of the Trust using WiFi SPARK than they had in the previous three years!"

Between September and December 2022, the Trust and its charity saw around 4,000 monthly email subscribers. Since working with WiFi SPARK, the traffic volume to the RFL Charity website has increased significantly, rising to over 17,000 in February 2023 — all from the Trust adding their charity logo onto the WiFi portal homepage that users can click on and interact with.

If every one of those subscribers donated £10, Royal Free could see over £170,000 in just six months.

Charity exposure is both engaging and rewarding

By integrating Trust and charity news, events, and donation buttons onto your SPARK® platform, a Trust can actively contribute to addressing social issues and positively impact their community. It also allows the Trust to support causes aligning with its mission or intentions, ultimately fulfilling its goals. 

To develop this further, visitors have the opportunity to enter their email and check a ‘hear more from us’ box which will enrol them into the charity’s marketing database so that they may receive regular updates long after they’ve left the hospital. This allows the charity to nurture their relationships with visitors and keep them involved in future activities. 

Patients, visitors and staff engaging in charitable activities can provide emotional satisfaction to themselves and the Trustees, and offers a sense of fulfilment, purpose and meaning beyond financial gains. 

Knowing that the Trust is making a difference and positively impacting the lives of others can be deeply rewarding and can contribute to the overall wellbeing of those associated with the Trust.

All of this is possible with SPARK® Connect and SPARK® Media. We believe patient engagement platforms should work to cover all areas of integrated care, engagement and entertainment services.

A platform that benefits more than just patients

WiFi SPARK continues to evolve with the demands and changing needs of the NHS, so we've made it our mission to ensure that our integrated system works for more than just patients, by offering bespoke and tailored solutions to suit any Trust.

Click below to learn more about what SPARK® Media can offer to enhance your Trust.