Blackburn pupils helping shape the future of patient apps
Pupils across Blackburn with Darwen have been given a sneak preview of an exciting new app launched by the NHS.
The NHS Orb app is being piloted across Lancashire and South Cumbria and it brings all the important local health and care information together in one simple app.
The functionality of the app is very innovative and has been user tested across Lancashire and South Cumbria for 12 months with impressive feedback.
UDevelop a creative media and arts organisation facilitated running the session with pupils and provided them with an activity to review the app. The pupils at Blackburn Central School were given exclusive access to the functions of the app and were invited to share their views and ideas for further improvements. In recognition of this work they were then awarded certificates from the NHS, UDevelop and the developers to thank them for their work.
Dr Amanda Thornton, the Digital Health Clinical Lead for Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria, is leading the drive locally to consider how the NHS can better harness technological advances to deliver services better. She explained: “We’re struggling for workforce. We haven’t got enough doctors and nurses to do jobs, so technology can really help us to use those people we have in work even more effectively.”
Developer Ross Cooper said: “We want to create an NHS platform for patients. In England there are hundreds and thousands of applications and websites that deal with every aspect of health. “The issue we’ve found is that either people don’t know about them or didn’t find them easy to organise and access.”
“The session was fun and interactive and I loved the NHS ORB app as it will save loads of time for people”
“It is a great app and we will be able to show our families how to use it”