Reflecting on a Remarkable Year: SPARK® TSL's Journey in 2023

From our first NHS Engagement & Demo Day to app partnerships, fundraising efforts, and the all important rebrand – it's been a year filled with achievements and milestones.

Let's take a moment to reflect on SPARK® TSL's incredible journey in 2023.

• Achievements of the Year
• The SPARK® TSL Impact
• The Vision for the Future
• Learning From The NHS And Providing Tailored Solutions

Achievements of the Year

2023 has been a big year for SPARK® TSL. With the rebrand, attending events, expanding our teams & having our first installation of SPARK® Horizon.

• Rebrand Success: We successfully executed a significant rebrand, uniting WiFi SPARK & Hospedia under the umbrella of SPARK® TSL.
• Team Expansion: Welcoming Mandy Keyworth and Karen Kong to our sales and contracts teams, we've strengthened our core with valuable additions.
• The NHS turns 75: SPARK® TSL featured in the NHS 75 publication. We celebrated the NHS’ incredible journey and raised awareness for our solutions which will help relieve NHS pressures.
• SPARK® Horizon installation: We had our first installation in Manchester at a new Trauma Centre. We’re excited to start realising the ROI’s of our latest technology.
• Fundraising: We raised a whopping £2,216 for our voted charity of the year, Cats Protection.
• South London and Maudsley became the first mental health Trust to roll out SPARK® Media across their site.
• There were lots of upgrades to NHS Gateways. This keeps the NHS estate up to date with technology, which in turn, is supports the increase in usage we have seen in NHS Free WiFi.

Events, events, events

• Engagement Days: 2023 kicked off our first Engagement Day at Southampton Ageas Bowl in March. This event was such a success that we did another Engagement Day at York Racecourse in November.
• Round Tables: We also hosted two Round Tables, specifically for Patient Experience and Estates and Facilities. Valuable insights were given by NHS employees, including how technology can better support the patient experience.
• Network & Convention Events: We attended seven of these events as they help connect us to our existing and potential customers. These included both HETT North and South, Healthcare Partnership Network & Healthcare Strategy Forums.

The SPARK® TSL Impact

We’ve achieved a lot this year in terms of event attendance, growth, and our re-brand. But what has our impact been for our customers and end-users? Patients and WiFi users are our ultimate customers after all. Let’s look at the figures.

• Answered 304,000 calls to support patients with the Bedside Units.
• Entertained 450,000 patients with SPARK® Media.
• Had 42,692,358 daily unique sessions with our WiFi - SPARK® Connect.
• Engaged the minds of 26,635 patients with the stimulating game, Sudoku
• 8,200,000 + Hours of radio was listened to on the Bedside Units
• 9,300,000 + Of free TV was watched on the Bedside Units
  
  

The Vision for the Future

Ever since WiFi SPARK acquired Hospedia in 2021, we have been dedicated to removing the patient pays model on the legacy Bedside Units. We understand the importance of free entertainment for patients in hospitals. From the waiting room to their hospital bed. This is why our Bring-Your-Own-Device solution, SPARK® Media has always been free for patients. We want to improve the patient experience by providing free and easy access to entertainment and hospital resources. Relieving boredom and having well informed patients can reduce the length of their hospital stay, which helps tackle several NHS pain points such as bed blocking.

How We’re Making Hospital TV Packages Free on Legacy Bedside Units

Currently, patients need to pay for certain entertainment packages to fund the service. This supports the maintenance of the units which covers 24/7/365 support, health and safety checks, replacement of parts and the engineers that repair the units. We’re appealing to Trust and Charities to fund this instead of the patients. The higher price patients have to pay is due to a lack of utilisation. The more patients that use the Bedside Units, the lower the price can be while still being able to maintain the service. This is why when Trusts fund the cost of TV, it equates to as little as £1 per bed per day. (compared to a patient paying much more than that).

We would love to remove the patient pays model overnight, but if we did this with no alternative funding, hundreds of thousands of patients wouldn't have access to basic entertainment such as TV.

There are more SPARK® TSL solutions to removing this outdated patient pays model.

• SPARK® Media Bring Your Own Device: This patient entertainment and engagement platform is available on patient and visitors own device. It provides easy access links to entertainment such as sudoku, live TV and the hospital radio. There are several versions of this platform, including SPARK® Media: Lite to get started, and add ons such as digital newspapers and magazines.

    SPARK® Media has always been free for end users, however relies on the patient having their own device.

• SPARK® Horizon, upgraded Bedside Units: These modern bedside units host the SPARK® Media software. Once again, everything is free for the end user and the cost is covered by Trusts and their charities. Patient entertainment is an investment to improve the patient experience. However, unlike the legacy Bedside Units, Horizon has the ability to produce tangible ROI through it’s ability to host apps such as e-prescribing, meal ordering, translation services and more.
  
  

Learning From the NHS and Providing Tailored Solutions

This year, we have been more focused on hosting our own Engagement Days with existing Trust customers. We invite those who we want to hear more from, who we want to inform about their current SPARK® services and those who we want to learn from. They are a form of user group with open discussions, live demonstrations of our current products and a chance for one on one conversations.

These events benefit both SPARK® TSL and the Trusts. It creates a collaborative environment where we can learn from each other and create a plan for the future. SPARK® TSL don’t just provide a solution, we tailor it and listen to the needs of our customers to help streamline processes, provide return on investment and most importantly, improve the patient experience.

We are going to be doing more of these events in 2024 and invite along more partnerships. Keep your eyes and ears out for an Engagement day coming to your area. Contact us if you’d like to get involved and help us shape the future of digital transformation in the NHS.