Phones for patients - Helping patients connect with their loved ones

No visitors means little or no contact with your loved ones. That's the problem facing many patients in hospitals and care homes right now.

Inspired by personal circumstances (one of our team has a family member currently in hospital and is not able to speak or see her) we wanted to do something to make a difference for the many patients across the country in this time of crisis who are in a similar position, offering them that vital connection to their loved ones; to be able to speak and see them via phone and video call.

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, many hospitals are severely limiting visitors. To communicate with loved ones, iPads and other mobile devices are a great resource for email, messaging, video conference, and calling, but supply is scarce.

So what are we doing here at Bridgeway to help?

We are collecting donated mobile devices, chargers and cables, preparing them and then deploying them to participating NHS organisations and care homes.

By preparing, we mean securing, centrally managing, and deploying communication and other apps to these devices. In addition, we’re currently working with NHS hospitals to develop best practices around this use case and share these with the participating NHS organisations.

We are delighted to say that we've already secured our first donations of 3,870 devices, with more being pledged in coming days, typically from other public and private sector organisations. We are already working with four interested hospitals and looking for more to join.

The whole team here at Bridgeway are dedicating their work- and spare-time to make this happen.

So if you are reading this and want to help or participate. What can you do?

You can donate unused devices, and cables and chargers and we'll do the rest.