University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust

University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust (UHBW) was formed on the 1st of April 2020 following the merger of University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust and Weston Area Health NHS Trust.

The UHBW specialist teaching Trust runs ten hospitals across the campus including a number of research facilities and is seen as a beacon for outstanding education, research, and innovation.

About University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust

Organisation Type

Hospital

Size of Operation

1,363 beds across the Trust

Client Since

2021

Product Suites

SPARK® Connect
SPARK® Media
SPARK® Unite
SPARK® Media: Games
24/7/365 Service Desk

What makes UHBW NHS Foundation Trust Brilliant?

The Trust has launched a new service alongside The Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust to tackle age inequality in ovarian cancer outcomes.

The Trust has laid out a vision prioritising a sustainable future and will work with the local communities to achieve it.

Bristol & Weston Hospital Charity work with the Trust to tailor and focus funding and improvements so that everyone has the best possible experience for their individual needs.

Goals

Deliver a unified patient engagement solution
Ensure the solution was up and running quickly
Bring a solution that is able to grow with time, responding to changing needs, evidential usage data, and goals
Allow the Trust to offer entertainment, education, and engagement opportunities to staff, patients, and visitors
Provide responsive and far-reaching WiFi
Support staff, patients, and visitors with a round-the-clock customer service and maintenance team

Our Solution

Following the merger of two Trusts to become University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust, the unified team required a WiFi and patient engagement solution that was up-to-date and responsive to cater to the large number of staff and visitors to the Trust each day.

With Bristol’s existing WiFi contract coming to an end abruptly, there was a dire need for a new solution to be deployed quickly. Working with SPARK TSL, the Trust established a new leased line that allowed for a high-quality WiFi provision to be deployed. Once this superior connection had been guaranteed, SPARK TSL engineers were able to connect the Weston-super-Mare site over 23 miles away to ensure a unified connection, with a new and improved WiFi provision.

Having over 2,000 access points across the two sites, WiFi users are guaranteed a reliable connection no matter their location.

With any SPARK® Connect WiFi solution, the deployment came with an NHS branded portal to greet users upon their connection, reliable content filtering, user analytics that can be fed directly back to the Trust, and the free patient engagement platform, SPARK® Media.

SPARK® Media is accessible to anyone connected to the WiFi and allows users to access a variety of links on one easy to navigate dashboard. The accessible links include NHS health advice, Trust information, dementia aids, and three Hospital radio links (due soon) which will be a lifeline to the Hospital population.

The platform will allow users to easily listen to the three beloved radio stations that run across the Trust and raise the awareness of the Trust’s charity by proudly displaying banner advertisements and delivering information about activities.

At present, the Trust has deployed SPARK® Unite on 150 devices, for those patients without access to their own technology. This will enable those patients without access to their own device the ability to borrow a tablet to use. This will be managed with the help of the Trust Charities, volunteers, and PALS teams at all sites.

The entire solution is supported 24/7/365 by SPARK TSL's UK-based Service Desk. The team is accessible via phone, email and live chat any time of day to ease any technical pressures on staff.

SPARK® Media - Entertaining
330,000 people so far in 2022

The patient engagement platform, accompanying the WiFi provision, has seen almost 330,000 visits to date.

Each of those visits is met with Trust charity branding. A banner sits at the bottom of the patient engagement portal, proudly advertising the charity’s logo and information. When clicked, visitors can donate, learn about activities, and find volunteering opportunities.

Insights such as these help to inform the Trust into which service would benefit from further investment.

The most popular entertainment links engaged with via the service

are on-demand TV sites such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, Netflix, and Disney+. But following close behind is the game Sudoku which has been enjoyed across the year.

The NHS’ health and care videos have also been enjoyed by many users showing a desire from patients to play an active role in their health journeys.

With SPARK TSL offering digital print, video calling, and more comprehensive games and TV packages, the Trust can explore these further whilst looking at live usage data.

Challenges Solved

Upon the merger of the two respective Trusts to become University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust, the new team wanted a unified patient experience solution that prioritised engagement and gave the Trust the opportunity to grow.

Working quickly to deploy the beginnings of the solution in 2021, SPARK TSL was able to provide the unity desired.

The Future

With the goal of deploying a new patient engagement solution to unify the Trust’s strategy, there were time pressures that staggered the deployment of a comprehensive solution.

The benefit of this is that both SPARK TSL and the Trust are able to see what services users respond best to and tailor the solution completely to meet their needs.

Electronic Meal Ordering and Electronic Survey modules are a possibility for the future and can be added to the Trust’s engagement solution via SPARK® Fusion bedside tablets. Both will benefit the Trust by saving money and valuable time, by freeing up staff members and creating a great return on investment.