About Raparu
Our objectives are to influence:
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Patient Empowerment in relation to their health and wellbeing
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Care Digitisation
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Population Health
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Services
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Digital capability and innovation
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Invisible digital boundaries
Our vision is to push for:
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A seamless digital gateway to health and care settings.
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Digitally enabled integrated clinically related processes
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Equality for all patients regardless of place of care and digital literacy
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The availability of digitally enabled self-care
These visions will be met by introducing the use of digital technology in health and wellbeing in people’s homes and community settings and raising the awareness of the population.
Meet the Raparu team
Dr Ruth Chambers OBE
Ruth is an honorary professor at Staffordshire University and also Keele University. She has recently retired as a practising GP after 40 years in frontline medical practice.
Ruth has been clinical lead for digital primary care transformation in practices across Staffordshire; and involved with digital upskilling of general practice nurses via action learning to create more than 300 digital nurse champions across England.
Ruth sees digital delivery of care as a great catalyst in modernising usual service in the NHS and encouraging patients to take more responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.
Paul Edden
Paul has been involved with Home Instead since it first began operations in the UK in 2005 and helped Home Instead successfully establish itself as a national provider of care.
Paul and his wife Sandra opened their office in 2009, covering the areas of Newcastle under Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent to fulfil their desire to provide exceptional at-home care for adults aged 18 and above in the community.
They have seen how Home Instead can make a real difference to people’s lives in their own homes, as well as providing employment opportunities for the local community.
Past projects delivered by the team
Digital upskilling
Over the years the team have been involved with the digital upskilling of nurses, health staff and members of the public and helping them take more involvement in managing their own health. This took place in a variety of settings, including community groups, libraries and church halls. The team also produced a number of webinars.
Alexa Project
The team were part of an innovative project which began in 2020 to distribute Amazon Alexas to members of the public in order to help them with their health and wellbeing and to reduce loneliness.
This uptake was excellent, partly as a result of COVID-19. The use of the devices meant that people (especially the elderly) could stay connected with family and friends during periods of lockdown when physical meeting up was not permitted.
Personal digital assistants such as Alexa can be a great boon for people in relation to boosting their health and wellbeing, especially those with long term conditions such as diabetes, respiratory and cardiovascular issues and those who are isolated at home.
Our digital reach programme has underpinned our allocation of Alexa Echo Shows to needy patients who can potentially benefit from them and appreciate their ability to make video calls to friends and family, access trusted information about their health and lifestyle, and fix regular reminders for taking medication.
Over 400 devices were distributed as part of the project.
My Health Kits
The Raparu team have provided many local people and community groups with ‘My Health Kits’ over the last couple of years to help empower the recipient to self-care and hopefully boost their health and wellbeing.
The accompanying advice and guidance contained in it, have been put together by healthcare professionals/patient advisers to support people with their self-care and health and wellbeing.
We included an advice sheet in the kit explaining what readings to aim for, and what levels they might safely reach, before a person should be concerned, and seek medical advice.
We trained the recipients to use health apps, video calls & interactive texting with their clinician or social carer too.
The overall aim of the deployment of the My Health Kits was to empower local citizens to self-care and provide people with the tools to make changes to their everyday lives to manage their health conditions and wellbeing at home. We hoped that using technology to aid the management of their health conditions at home would encourage people to consider exploring simple tools that may help them to better self-care or implement a lifestyle change.
There were four types of My Health Kit available as part of the project. Each kit focused on a particular health condition, weight management (297), diabetic footcare (70), stay balanced (mental wellbeing and sleep) (60) and stay lively (maintaining independence at home) (190). Each kit contained a low-level technology item/device and low-cost assistive aids mostly purchased from high street retailers. Each kit was offered in a reusable bag making the kit portable.
The team distributed a variety of 512 My Health Kits to people in the Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme area
Books
The Raparu team have been involved in the writing and production of 5 books to help people manage various health conditions with the assistance of technology, apps and simple, affordable smart aids.
The books can be ordered from Amazon by clicking the links:
Digital aids for self-care of your health and wellbeing - prediabetes and diabetes edition
Smart aids to live well - staying healthy with assistive technology
Take Control of Your Menopause with a Smart Approach
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