The Contact&Connect: Wheelchair script was co-designed with Sunderland Wheelchair Service (SWS), and is already proving successful in engaging with wheelchair users and their parents/carers. During the three month review, Head of Therapies/Deputy Chief Operating Officer Emma Anderson, said: “It’s helping us to genuinely understand how users want us to engage with them. We’ve found the approach really beneficial and really interesting, and I know we absolutely have to keep going with it.”

In time the calls will support over 3,000 wheelchair users per year, and shift the balance from reviews often being requested by families or service users, to being driven by the service. It will also reduce the time it takes to set up review appointments, as well as letters, calls and emails. Alongside the benefits of automating part of the review scheduling process and collecting information on how people are managing, the service has helped to identify those service users where contact details are out of date.

But by far the most important driver behind Contact&Connect: Wheelchair is to be ‘ahead of the curve’, in terms of having the key information in the core systems to support more personalised and informed reviews. SWS wants to ensure that children and complex adults do not outgrow their wheelchairs, understand whether their needs or aspirations have changed, that the wheelchair is not broken or out of date. By scheduling an automated call in advance of the review, means that this information is already logged and wheelchair users are primed for their review – making the review as responsive and relevant as possible.