Mindings has been announced as the winner of a European ‘assistive technology’ competition.
Entitled “CURA-B“, the initiative is a three-year project formed by ten partners from France, Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands. Organisations as varied as local authorities, health care organisations and academia joined forces to share knowledge and experience in order to improve the wellbeing of seniors and people living with long-term conditions.
Supported by the Alzheimer Society, one of the main aims of the project was to exploring ways for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to work with health and social care professionals – particularly those caring for people living with dementia – and to find ways to use technology to aid independence and enable people to live at home.
“It is crucial that as a council we do all we can to enable people to live independently at home for longer and often simple adaptations to the home can make this a reality.”
Councillor Alan Murray, Suffolk County Council’s Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Care
The CURA-B study into currently available assistive technology found that social and healthcare organisations “are often unhappy with the offerings from industry” who produce products and services focussing on monitoring, controlling and managing decline, rather than improving wellbeing. However SMEs, where there is much innovation, “find it difficult to work with both social and healthcare organisations”.
“Small and medium enterprises often have the technical creativity to deliver products that help people with dementia and other health conditions to maintain a good standard of independence at home.”
Councillor Alan Murray, Suffolk County Council’s Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Care
The culmination of the three-and-a-half year project was a competition to point a spotlight at novel innovation by SMEs in the assistive care space. In a final event in front of an audience of health and social care professionals Mindings was presented by Founder Stuart Arnott as the winning service.
It is the hope of the CURA-B participants that by championing the winners they can collaborate to bring their services to market and ultimately to service users.
“With as many as 800,000 people in the UK over the age of 65 being classified as ‘chronically lonely’ it’s clear that social isolation is one of our big social problems. Easy-to-use technology will be one of the main tools in the coming years in enabling the much-needed social connection that our seniors need for their wellbeing”.
Stuart Arnott, Mindings Founder
Comments