A sample of the RAT Group's achievements, 2013

As it's that time of year once again where people are busy preparing for Christmas, racing to get those important work tasks done before the New Year, it's only too easy to let the past year's achievements pass us by. Therefore we feel it is important to take a step back and reflect on what we have achieved in 2013. As there have been so many we have decided to include a select few below. Enjoy... 


January - KT-Equal held 3 events this month; Nutrition in older age, Thinking outside the box and Design for living in later life.






February - CATCH (Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare) established their new name and welcomed Corinne Wells, Professor Arlene Astell and Dr Abigail Millings on board.

Ready, Steady, Go Telehealth Implementation Toolkit

March brought many dissemination events including KT-Equal workshops on digital technologies and care as well as TaCT theme members Dr Jack Parker, Lauren Powell, Dr Alison Orrell and Claire Bentley presenting their work to doctors at Rotherham Hospital. Here they discussed how Telehealth could be useful, telehealth research methodologies, the SMART Project and University of Sheffield Research looking into the usability of the new "Ready, Steady, Go" Telehealth Implementation Toolkit (Brownsell & Ellis, 2012).

Dr Jack Parker and Dr Katherine Easton in Sweden

April - Dr Jack Parker and Dr Katherine Easton visited Sweden for one of the many brokerage events for the RICHARD (Regional ICT based Cluster for Healthcare Applications and R&D Integration Project.





May - Professor Pam Enderby was appointed Chair of Healthwatch, Sheffield.



June - RAT Group journal article won a highly commended award; Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence, 2013. Simon Brownsell, Steve Blackburn and Professor Mark Hawley's paper "User requirements for an ICT-based system to provide care, support and information access for older people in the community" was published in the Journal of Assistive Technologies and can be accessed here.

Dr Katherine Easton presenting her poster at the Kings Fund

July - RAT Group members Lauren Powell, Dr Alison Orrell,  Dr Jo Nicholson and Dr Lizzie Coates delivered oral presentations and Dr Katherine Easton and Sarah Gorst gave poster presentation, all at the Third Kings Fund International Congress on Telehealth and Telecare, London. 

Professor Mark Hawley speaking at SPLAT

August - Professor Mark Hawley was a keynote speaker at a workshop on Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies (SPLAT) and Professor Gail Mountain was also a Keynote speaker at an Ageing and Assistaed Living Network Event.

Dr Nasrin Nasr, Prof Gail Mountin, Dr Steven Ariss & course attendees

September - New grants were awarded to CATCH and RAT member Dr Abigail Millings from the ESRC Seminar Series Competition and the British Skin Foundation. Also, Dr Peter Cudd was re-elected on the board AAATE (Association for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europre). The SCRIPT project was presented at the International Neurorehabilitation Symposium (INRS) in Zurich and Dr Nasrin Nasr and Dr Steven Ariss led a short course; Evaluating Programmes, technology and other complex interventions (EPTOCI).



October was a hugely successful month; CLAHRC 2 funding was secured; Professor Sue Mawson to be director of the new CLAHRC Yorkshire and Humber. A new Dr arrived in the group; Katherine Easton obtained her PhD! Also, the report "Shining a Light on Augmentative and Alternative Communication" authored by Professor Pam Enderby, Simon Judge, Alex John and Sarah Creer was published and can be found here on the communication matters website. The report was funded by the Big Lottery investigated the numbers of individuals requiring assistive and alternative communication, current provision and best practice of provision across England.

RAT Group raise money for Children in Need

November - Very successful CATCH external launch event. RAT group also raised £450 for Children in Need (including Gift Aid) by coming to work in their pyjamas.

Professor Pam Enderby

December - Sadly, the RAT Group will finish the year with 1 less member; Professor Pam Enderby is to retire this month. Her contributions to the RAT Group and the speech and language therapy community were staggering throughout her career and she will be truly missed.