It was
really good to meet Graham Skidmore and his Executive Assistant, Rosie, earlier
this week.
Graham
is Service Quality Director for Thera East
and is taking part in the Lived Experience pilot, which aims to fulfil the need for wider
engagement between service users and the sector and their communities. Graham is keen to extend his role by bringing new experiences to his job that could
further help the people Thera supports. As he is interested in the use of assistive
technology I arranged for him and Rosie to visit Icom’s telesupport demo suite to see
some of their equipment in action.
Graham and Rosie in the demo suite |
Kevin
and Paul from Icom showed some of the detector sensors, such as epilepsy,
falls and extreme temperature. They also talked about how they have developed some
more innovative pieces of equipment not usually seen elsewhere such as a cotton
enuresis sheet which is better to sleep on than the old style plastic sheets, a
flood detector which detects that a flood is likely to occur and can cut off
the supply before it happens rather than afterwards and also infrared beams
which detect movement between two spaces.
Graham
was very interested in the biometric locks which can be of real assistance to
people who have difficulty using keys or often forget their keys. Icom even
came up with a solution when Graham asked what someone without hands could use!
Graham
trying out the biometric lock
|
Kevin
also
explained about their range of telehealth equipment which can help
people manage and monitor their own health conditions and feed-back
information to
their health care professional remotely.
Graham looking at some of the telehealth equipment |
Graham
was really interested in how the equipment can help people to remain safe and become
more independent in their own homes. We talked about how important it is for
support staff to be properly trained and so that they see the equipment as
helping them to provide better support rather than fearing the equipment.
Graham is going to share his experience with others at Thera so they can think
about how technology can assist the people they support.
A
huge thank you to Kevin and Paul at Icom for their time and allowing us access
to their demo suite.
Please
email me: contactclaire@clairehall.com
if you would like to visit Icom’s demo suite or would like further information
about assistive technology assessments and training.