Meet the 50 faces of CATCH

As the centre continues to grow, we introduce the 50 faces of CATCH: a diverse team comprised of different groups working towards the same goal: to research, develop, evaluate and implement new technologies to enable people to live well and age well.

Originally founded by Professors Mark Hawley and Pam Enderby, the Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology group (RAT) began in 2007 when Mark and his team joined Pam in the School of Health and Related Research at the University of Sheffield. Nine years on and a number of the original members remain in CATCH.

Today, with 50 members in the core team, CATCH occupies more than one small office. We’re very fortunate to count some top academics in the fields of Health Services Research, Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare amongst our core team. This includes our Centre Director Professor Mark Hawley who also leads the Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology Group, Professor Sue Mawson who leads the NIHR CLAHRC (Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care) Yorkshire and Humber, Professor Arlene Astell and Professor Gail Mountain.

 

Research remains at the core of what we do and, to facilitate this, the centre is made up of a number of groups, from PhD students and researchers developing knowledge to contribute to the development and evaluation of new technologies, to Professional Services colleagues driving business development, marketing strategy and vital project support.

CLAHRC theme Telehealth and Care Technologies forms just one group under the CATCH umbrella. A number of CATCH researchers’ and academics’ work is focussed here.

The six-weekly CATCH Networking lunches were pioneered by members of the team in Professional Services roles, reiterating the importance of face-to-face networking to spark future collaborations. When the wider network and our collaborators were invited to come and meet our new Professor Luc de Witte this month, the lunch grew into our most successful event to date. To register for the next Networking Lunch on Wednesday 30th November from 12.15 - 14.00, please contact Laura Murray.

In addition to the work of the core team, we also bring together and co-ordinate the activities of more than 70 academics, across 17 departments and five faculties allowing our research to tap into specialist knowledge which extends further than Medicine, Science and Engineering to Architecture and English to name a few.

To discover the people behind the research, you can meet our team here.

Who runs this blog?

This blog is run by a number of researchers, all from the University of Sheffield.

They come under three different research groups (see below) and all have one thing in common: they like to see how technology can play a useful role in healthcare.

Research groups:

Rehabilitation and Assisitive Technology
Telehealth and Care Technologies
Centre for Assisted Living and Connected Healthcare

Barnsley Assistive Technology Team expands and moves into new premises

The opening of Barnsley Hospital’s new Assistive Technology facility brought it home to me, very powerfully, just how far things have advanced recently in the provision of electronic assistive technology services, both in Yorkshire and the Humber and in England more generally.

In 2013, NHS England took over the national commissioning of ‘Complex Disability Equipment’ (which includes electronic assistive technology and prosthetics) as specialist services. Previously, commissioning had been carried out locally or regionally and the access that people with disabilities had to services – and the breadth and quality of the service provided -  was very post-code dependent. Complex Disability Equipment is one of the few areas of the NHS where substantial new money has been found to improve services, based on a recognition that services had previously been under-funded. As a result, the quality and reach of services across England are being expanded, and it is expected that access to these services, for people with severe physical disabilities, will improve and become more equitable across the country.

Barnsley’s Assistive Technology (AT) service is recognized nationally for its high quality services, as well as its research and innovation. It provides technology to individuals– both environmental control systems (for independent control of the home environment) and communication aids (which allow people without intelligible speech to communicate – think Stephen Hawking). The Barnsley AT service also works closely with CATCH to research and develop new types of assistive technology and AT service provision, and to evaluate their impact.

The Barnsley AT service has been asked by NHS England to expand its service to cover the whole of Yorkshire and the Humber. This expansion is now taking place and the team’s new facilities will house a greatly expanded multi-disciplinary team of skilled and dedicated staff.

I am proud to see what the team has achieved. I and my colleagues have been fighting for over 20 years to see high quality services set up across the country, so that people with disabilities are able to gain equitable access to the technology that makes such a difference to their lives. This is now happening and I’m delighted that the Barnsley AT service is, once again, taking the lead.

By Prof. Mark Hawley

Director of CATCH,

Honorary Consultant Scientist, Barnsley Hospital

CATCH researchers take their work to the community in Vancouver

Professor Arlene Astell discusses evaluation
concepts with the AAL-WELL team.

Myself (Tim Gomersall) and Professor Arlene Astell returned this week from a successful final meeting of the steering group for the AAL-WELL study in Vancouver, Canada. AAL-WELL is a study about the potential for the new class of so-called ‘ambient assisted living’ (AAL) systems to support older people to maintain everyday activities and meaningful social roles, and our group brings together software engineers, psychologists, occupational therapists, and social scientists to examine the issues from multiple perspectives.

In the meeting, we discussed several key issues about AAL that have yet to be addressed in the research literature. Our colleagues from the Karolinska Institutet (Sweden) spoke about the activities and social roles older people want to master in everyday life, the technologists from Toronto brought their insights on user-centred design along, and the Vancouver-based social scientists and modellers discussed the ethical issues around AAL. For our own part, Professor Astell and I led a discussion about current controversies in evaluation theories and methods for AAL. Evaluation approaches for these technologies are in their infancy, but it is crucial to have a sound basis for understanding their value if we are to gain the promised benefits of the AAL revolution – and we certainly had some lively discussions on how we each understood evaluation from our varied research perspectives!

We didn’t just talk among ourselves while we were in Vancouver. On the fourth day of the meeting, we led a knowledge café in which we presented our research ideas to a residential community of older adults living just outside the city boundaries. This was an especially valuable part of the experience – not only did we get a chance to take some of our ideas out into the wider world, we also got some interesting feedback on them from a community group. In fact, a lot of our assumptions were upended by their comments – for example, it is often said that AAL will help people to live independently, but the residents spoke about the concerns they would have about becoming dependent on technologies, and the problems this would cause if the technologies broke down or became unreliable. If ever there was a clear illustration of how important it is to include the views of older adults when considering how best to support them, this was it.

We were privileged to have met with such great colleagues and participants in this beautiful, rainy, lively city – our discussions framed by views over the Pacific and the sweeping forests and mountainsides of British Columbia. And now, we can’t wait to tell you more about our next research outputs from the study. Watch this space…