Elderly care provider New Care provides a 5-star care home experience to hundreds of residents across the Midlands, Northwest, and Yorkshire. When considering technologies to support their activities programme, New Care needed something mobile that could be used around the home to include different residents with varying care needs. New Care also wanted something that would provide peace of mind by helping to keep residents and staff safe. That’s why Sharp proposed Interactive Touchscreen Tables and a Plasmacluster Air Purifier.
“The table is incredibly easy to use and it’s so multi-purpose. Everyone loves it.”
Tina Blake, Home Manager, New Care Homes
The Challenge
• Ensuring bed-bound residents are included in activities.
• Making the activities programme fun and engaging.
• Keeping residents safe within the care home.
• Finding a reliable service provider.
Inclusion and people safety.
The first challenge for New Care was ensuring all residents were included in the comprehensive activities programme. Home Manager at New Care in Salford, Tina Blake said: “On the first floor we have people with low level dementia needs, and on the top floor of the home we have people with nursing needs who often can’t get out of bed or travel around the home. It can be really difficult for these people to socialise and feel like they’re
included in our daily programmes.”
Tina continued: “We have a comprehensive activities programme so a constant challenge for us is ensuring it remains fun and engaging. Residents come to our homes expecting a 5-star luxury experience and an excellent quality of life. So our job is to make sure that translates into the activities programme by making the experience ahead of the curve, different, and fun above all else.”
Another challenge for New Care was resident and staff safety, particularly with bugs and viruses. Tina said: “As you can imagine resident safety is our main priority. Residents are often more prone to viruses and the nature of an enclosed area is that all sorts of harmful things can be floating in the air unless we keep on top of it.”
The last challenge for Tina was “Ensuring we work with trusted partners and reliable service providers. The nature of our work means that we can be pulled away at a moment’s notice, so we don’t have time to be waiting for unreliable devices or waiting for service call outs. Anything we introduce needs to work well, and anyone we partner with needs to deliver.”
"It’s great peace of mind knowing Plasmacluster is working away in the background to help keep everyone safe.”
Tina Blake, Home Manager, New Care Homes
The Solution
• Engaging Interactive Touchscreen Tables.
• Highly mobile next-gen device.
• Plasmacluster Air Purifier to keep people safe.
• Reliable and friendly Sharp service.
Next-gen technologies.
Sharp’s first solution was to introduce Flex Interactive Touchscreen Tables . Flex can be used either vertically in an upright position or horizontally as a table, making it engaging in different use cases and in different scenarios. Complete with Google PlayStore for access to thousands of apps, New Care residents would be able to use the device for puzzles, group games, and sensory stimulation, or for watching the news or films.
Flex was also proposed to ensure all residents could be included in the activities programme, no matter where they were in the home. Armed with a battery pack for up to 8 hours of cableless use, the next-gen device is highly mobile; paired with the lightweight coated steel frame and easy lock wheels, Flex could be easily moved around the home as needed.
To keep New Care residents and staff safe from airborne particles and viruses, Sharp’s next proposal was to install a Plasmacluster Air Purifier. Plasmacluster replicates naturally occurring ions to pull bacteria, viruses, particles, pollen, and odours from the air, releasing clean air back into the surrounding area.
The device was also chosen because of its sleek and stylish exterior, ensuring it wouldn’t look out of place in New Care’s 5-star décor. With little to no noise pollution Plasmacluster would also cause no disruption to residents and staff.
Lastly, Sharp’s friendly and reliable service would ensure New Care staff could focus on their jobs and activities programmes could run as normal. Proactive device maintenance built into Sharp’s service is designed to prevent issues from occurring, and a targeted 4-hour response time would deal with any issues, should they arise.
“Simply put, because of the positive experience we’ve had with Sharp I wouldn’t hesitate to choose them for any future requirements.”
Tina Blake, Home Manager, New Care Home
The Result
• All residents feel included in activities.
• Multi-purpose device used in a multitude of ways.
• Airborne diseases kept at bay, helping to prevent illness.
• A trusted service that can be called upon as needed.
Aiding New Care’s 5-star experience.
Since having the Flex Interactive Touchscreen Table, Tina said: “We can now make sure everyone is involved in the activities programme. The table is so easy to use all we do is wheel it into a resident’s room if they’re nursed in bed, or to different areas of the home if people struggle with mobility and they can all be included. It’s not just used during scheduled activities either, if a resident wants to use it by themselves, we can just take it to them and they’re away.”
Tina continues: “It can be incredibly mentally stimulating for our residents, and physically for those with low mobility. Our residents have loads of fun with it as a table for group games and sensory apps, and then we take it up onto the dementia floor for residents to use upright to watch TV, films or the news. It’s incredibly multi-use, everyone loves it. Several homes in the New Care group of facilities now have them for daily use.”
When talking about the installation of the Plasmacluster Air Purifier, Tina said: “As you can imagine when you have a group of people in an enclosed space together things like bugs and viruses can spread pretty quickly, so it’s great knowing Plasmacluster is there helping to keep residents and staff safe. It also helps with dinner smells and other odours, it’s very useful.”
Lastly, when commenting on the service received from Sharp, Tina said: “Nothing has ever broken down, it’s all very user friendly and reliable – and that’s the critical thing when choosing equipment. Whenever I need to get in touch Sharp are only a phone call away. Simply put, because of the positive experience we’ve had with Sharp I wouldn’t hesitate to choose them for any future requirements.”
