Living Lab

Leading Places Initiative

A small team from University of Brighton developed and led a consortium comprising of health-related public, private and government stakeholder groups as part of the national Leading Places initiative.

This resulted in a Digital Living Lab in a 50-household retirement home in Brighton, providing an arena for testing and developing innovative prototypes to reduce social isolation.

Leading Places aimed to set up and develop meaningful relationships between universities and regional ecosystems. 

Brighton was one of eight ‘Leading Places’ pilots in the UK, trialling innovative ways to promote healthier, more independent ageing.

Brighton’s project aims were to support the development of strategies in self-managed care for older people, to identify ways to prevent or delay them moving to more intensive care programmes. This was done through community-focused research by the partners at supported housing development Leach Court.

This project is ongoing and involves develops a living lab in the City of Brighton and Hove, where a network of technical champions will focus on testing different digital devices and applications to reduce social isolation and remotely monitor vital signs, activities and emotions of older members of the community.

The initial pilot project was chosen because projected levels of demand for adult social care services outstrip the city council’s available resources and measures are being explored to support the most vulnerable residents in the city, to help them to remain as independent as possible. 

The University of Brighton went on to work with partners to establish a Digital Health Living Lab in a residential retirement block in the city - a space where health and wellbeing issues are explored along with the potential for technology to help solve them. A definition of a Living Lab is that it is a 'user-centred, open innovation ecosystems based on systematic user co-creation approach, integrating research and innovation processes in real life communities and settings' (European Network of Living Labs).

Partners

Researcher - Dr Theo Fotis, University of Brighton

University of Sussex

Brighton and Hove City Council

Kent Surrey Sussex Academic Health Science Network

Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group

Outcomes

• Engaged 50 household retirement homes
• Secured further funding to enable the establishment of a 'Living Lab' - based at Leach Court in Brighton.
• Secured funding from Kent Surrey Sussex Academic Health Science Network for a Darzi Fellow to work on a ‘Digital Health Test Bed’ for a year.

Tackling loneliness through a living lab

Loneliness is one of the greatest public health challenges of our time. Research shows that loneliness is associated with a greater risk of inactivity, smoking, increased risk of coronary heart disease and stroke, increased risk of depression, low self-esteem, reported sleep problems and increased stress response.

There are a large range of preventative initiatives in Brighton and Hove, but these are not universally available or necessarily easy to access for all who need them.

Built on the experience of two partners the Ignite partnership brought the Living Lab into a community pub to explore loneliness locally and held meetings with ‘Community Connectors’ – volunteers who are vital to running a range of activities locally. As a result of the Lab, the partnership has been in discussion with a company about trialling a telecommunication device to engage isolated citizens. Additionally, the partnership enabled the piloting of a new yoga group to be based at the pub to add to existing activities for local people.

The Bevy is the first community-run pub on a housing estate in the UK. Located in Moulsecoomb in East Brighton, the pub acts as a community space for local people and groups and the team know first-hand just how important it is to tackle loneliness. 

Partners

Researcher - Dr Theo Fotis, University of Brighton

Lead community partner - Iain Chambers, The Bevy Community Pub

Outcomes

• In the past, it took the researcher 12 months to establish a Living Lab. Working with a community partner, it has taken only 12 weeks as part of the Ignite programme.
• This, as far as we know, is the first Living Lab to be established in a community pub.
• Ran sessions to explore loneliness locally including identifying key volunteers – the ‘Community Connectors’.
• Trialled a new community group.
• Working on a protocol for trialling a telecommunication device to engage isolated citizens that will help sustain the project and partnership.

Supporting unpaid carers to improve the lives of the older people they care for

By 2050, one in four people in the UK will be over 65. They will need safe, age-friendly homes and neighbourhoods that support their health and wellbeing - yet 80% of the homes we will be living in by then have already been built.

The aim of the £2.5m Homes for Healthy Ageing programme has been to bring together stakeholders from local government, the built environment, healthcare and academia to identify, trial and showcase possible solutions to the challenges that poses.

Unpaid Careers

Five testbeds were run across the UK, with the one in Brighton - led by Theo Fotis, Reader in the School of Sport and Health Sciences - focusing on the difficulties faced by unpaid carers who take care of older people and the solutions that could help.

Partners

Researcher - Dr Theo Fotis, University of Brighton

Public Health Programme Manager - David Brindley, Brighton and Hove City Council

Living Lab Design Manager - Clemence Martin-Beaumont, Connected Places Catapult

SMEs - Kraydel, Tendertec and GGCare

Outcomes

• 1 in 4 in UK will be 65+ by 2050 (Ref)
• Care provided unpaid by the nations’ carers is worth an estimated £132bn per year – considerably more than total spending on the NHS in England (Ref)
• City of Brighton and Hove was chosen as one of 5 national testbeds in £2.5m Government programme - Homes for Healthy Ageing Programme
• 100+ Living Labs participants 
• Co-creating digital solutions for healthy aging  

Using technology to address gaps in care and empower users to keep healthy and motivated

EMPOWERCARE project examines how innovative solutions can support individuals and communities to manage their own care.

It involved 13 cross border European partners, as part of the Interreg VA 2Seas Mers Zeeën programme and was awarded more than 4 million euros in funding by the European Regional Development Fund.

The project involved partners coming together to co-create and test social innovations and digital health solutions to make local services more efficient and effective to address societal challenges in the 2Seas area. 

Community Asset Based Development approaches explored the heart of what matters most to local communities by harnessing skills and expertise of local people, co-creating innovations that make a real difference to lives, health and wellbeing. 

The 13 partners from the UK, the Netherlands, France and Belgium worked together to develop a holistic approach to respond to current gaps in the care of people aged 65+ and those aged 50+ and living with a chronic condition.

Partners

Researcher - Dr Theo Fotis, University of Brighton

Outcomes

> 100 citizens and 300 stakeholders (health professionals,  commissioners, health students) engaged

> Empowerment strategy 

> A package of resources to enable transformation of the workforce

> A Technology Blueprint on initiatives and technology 

> Evaluation report on the value of the EMPOWERCARE approach