The Garth and Mapleton Road Care Homes

Our Solution

Prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, the NHS released a ‘long-term plan’ to span across the coming decade, highlighting the good and the bad of the National Health Service and how it will work to improve itself. Key among the assessments was an identified need to ‘set out a wide-ranging and funded programme to upgrade technology and digitally-enabled care across the NHS’. Following the turmoil of the Covid-19 crisis, we have seen an exacerbation of this need for a digital-first NHS across all aspects of care including the provision of patient entertainment as isolated hospital stays increased in duration and frequency. But nowhere more was this isolation keenly felt than in care homes across the country.   

SPARK® TSL had identified the need for an improvement in the resident entertainment and connectivity provision before the pandemic broke. Chief Commercial Officer Dean Moody approached NHSX in 2019 with a considerable business case as to how investment into digital transformation in the care home sector would not only be beneficial for the residents but could also see a considerable return on investment for the NHS, through embracing the digital tools within the market. 

The business proposal centred around working with SPARK® TSL partners to accelerate the connectivity within care homes and from that, facilitate access to a variety of digital services aimed at making remote monitoring, mobile work environments for NHS staff and home administrative duties work more efficiently enabling money to be saved. On top of this, a renewed WiFi package would enable resident entertainment to be considerably advanced.  

A signature of SPARK® TSL’s media provision in the NHS, SPARK® Media is a free-to-use entertainment platform from which residents can watch television, listen to the radio or read digitised newspapers and magazines all from a WiFi-enabled phone, tablet or computer. Already deployed across over 90 NHS Trusts across the UK, the SPARK® Media solution has effectively kept patients entertained during lengthy hospital stays, all with no cost to the end-user. Adapting the provision for care home residents and highlighting dementia-specific nostalgia resources had the possibility to deeply enrich the experiences of the residents when browsing the collection. 

NHSX agreed with SPARK® TSL that a provision of this kind was long overdue and gave the green light to implement a trial run in two care homes; The Garth and Mapleton Road located in Kington and London, respectively.      

Working with partners Cisco Meraki at the council-run Mapleton Road and Ruckus at the privately-owned Garth, SPARK® TSL was able to ensure the homes were provided with speed, reliability and top-of-the-line performance in their WiFi. With both homes having multiple floors, over 30 residents, mobile staff and varying visitor numbers it was imperative that the WiFi was able to keep up with the dynamic spaces whilst providing security and reliability.   

Prior to the solution being installed, SPARK® TSL conducted a survey at both homes to ensure that the right needs were being met and that the solution aligned with the technical abilities of the residents and staff.   

After a delayed installation due to coronavirus restrictions, The Garth and Mapleton Road was up and running in spring 2021. Providing the homes with tablets from which to access a new WiFi connection, branded User Experience portal and a plethora of digital services with tailored dementia links, the residents are now able to take enjoyment from the WiFi offering and use it to keep in touch with practitioners, loved ones and be empowered to learn more about their care all via the easy-to-use tablets.  

As for the value-added for the NHS, it comes in many forms. With the investment in the installation of the top-of-the-line Cisco Meraki and Ruckus networks, SPARK® TSL can facilitate remote consultations between NHS staff and residents. During the exacerbation of workload and variety of new responsibilities for NHS staff, remote monitoring and remote consultations save valuable time and money in not having to arrange in-person visits. Furthermore, with the care home staff and NHS staff working dynamically, and in the case that in-person visits are necessary, strong and secure connectivity allows staff to easily connect to the new WiFi in place via their own User Experience to access clinical information and a variety of digital aids.  

On top of this, SPARK® TSL has worked closely with the NHS through the development of its SPARK® Media package to integrate access to the NHS Apps Library, the NHS Health A-Z, NHS Medicines A-Z, and much more all to aid staff and empower patients to take control and understand their own care. This is no different for care home residents and staff, by facilitating access to a selection of NHS digital services and tailored entertainment links residents become actively involved in their wellbeing and staff are able to maintain open conversations with easy-to-access digital prompts.  

Any SPARK® TSL solution comes with an entirely managed service. Monitored by SPARK® TSL engineers, the care home solutions deployed at The Garth and Mapleton Road are assisted by a 24/7/365 UK-based Service Desk on hand to answer any connection queries on the solution.