<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none;" alt="" src="https://px.ads.linkedin.com/collect/?pid=4574585&amp;fmt=gif">
Skip to content

NHS Charities

SPARK® TSL's healthcare solution was built with charities in mind. Working closely with NHS charities from across the UK, WiFi is being actively used to increase charity exposure, drive donations and generate awareness. This case study looks at SPARK® TSL's work with Imperial Health Charity, UHNM Charity, King’s College Hospital Charity, and West Suffolk’s My Wish Charity to showcase the possibilities when investing in patient engagement. 

When Covid hit in the beginning of 2020, Imperial Health Charity worked with the Trust and SPARK® TSL to deliver a strong, free WiFi connection to patients, visitors, and staff. Together the teams developed a platform from which to supercharge awareness for the charity, drive donations and drive engagement. 

Purple Pink Gradient Holographic Desktop Wallpaper
home-background-shape

Charity Focus: Imperial Health Charity

Organisation Type

A charity supporting and working in partnership with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

Size of Operation

The Charity works across five London hospitals, Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Queen Charlotte's & Chelsea, St Mary's and the Western Eye.

Client Since

2014

Product Suites

Free guest access and staff WiFi with tailored user experience portal (UX) and a new patient engagement platform.

What makes Imperial Health Charity so brilliant?

give-icon

Grants – In line with the charity’s strategic aims, the grants programme provides funding and support to projects that strive to achieve great science, excellent patient care, and healthier communities.

globe-icon-thin

Arts – Supporting the arts in healthcare, Imperial Health Charity manage an Arts Council accredited hospital art collection and run an arts engagement programme for patients and NHS staff.

trophy-icon-small

Volunteering – The charity manages volunteering across all five of the Trust’s hospitals, adding value to the work of staff and helping to improve the hospital experience for patients and visitors.

St_Georges-141 (1)

Goals

  • Offer improved connectivity across the Trust for patients, visitors, and staff
  • As a result of improved connectivity, increase the WiFi usage to relay hospital, charity, and engagement information through a tailored user experience portal.
  • Increase exposure to the charity and encourage involvement and donations.
  • Offer a solution that was entirely supported, 24/7/365.
  • Offer a solution that benefits staff, visitors and patients alike.
  • Develop a consensual line of communication between the Charity and interested visitors, volunteers, and patients.
  • Give patients, visitors and staff access to free entertainment across the Trust, available on their own devices.
bg-shape-1

Our Solution

The connectivity across Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust’s five sites had previously worked on a tiered basis. Free WiFi was offered to guests with a premium, paid package available to purchase. However, the strength of the connection was lacklustre and was standalone connectivity which didn’t have the breadth to encapsulate elevations to patient or clinical engagement.  

The need to refresh the WiFi and build a stronger foundation for future growth was exacerbated at the beginning of 2020 when the pandemic began to cause an increase of in-patients in need of a reliable connection and a means for the Trust to engage with them. Working with SPARK® TSL, Imperial Health Charity funded an overhaul that revolutionised the Trust’s offering across its five sites. Originally working on a six-month probationary period, the results of the transformation and the engagement received from patients, visitors and staff saw the Trust and Charity work to make the SPARK® TSL connectivity and engagement solution a permanent fixture.  

Regenerating the connectivity and ensuring a strong, secure and reliable network ran throughout the Trust, SPARK® TSL was able to begin building a unique user experience portal (UX) to greet patients, visitors and staff upon their connection to the free NHS WiFi.  

Branded in Imperial Health Charity colours and proudly displaying the charity’s logo, the UX works as a welcome gateway for users to get online. Here the charity can rotate information on activities, opportunities or general news across the year as well as actively signposting users to fundraising pages and ways they can get involved.  

Offering a new way for the charity to engage with the Trust’s visitors and display updated, information, Imperial Health Charity were able to solidify their brand identity and awareness within the Trust.  

To develop this further, visitors have the opportunity to enter their email and check a ‘hear more from us’ box which will enrol them into the charity’s marketing database so that they may receive regular updates long after they’ve left the hospital. This allows the charity to nurture their relationships with visitors and keep them involved in future activities.  

In the nearly two years that the system has been running, Imperial Health Charity have seen an average of 1,000 contacts a month enrolled into Marketing activity by opting in to updates via the guest-access WiFi. These are interested visitors who otherwise may have not known about the charity behind the Trust.  

Giving access to more than just a WiFi connection, the charity’s funding meant that SPARK® TSL’s patient engagement platform, SPARK® Media, would be accessible to all patients, staff and visitors on their own device. Navigating users to a unique URL, they can explore a range of radio stations, an extensive digital games library, Trust information, a variety of NHS Care links including the NHS Apps Library and further information on the Charity.  

A key feature added that alleviated loneliness during covid isolation periods for patients was the SPARK® Media: Unite application. Allowing for free and unlimited video calls to be made and received without the need for an account to be established, ensured that patients and staff could keep in touch with their loved ones whilst visitation was restricted.  

The patient engagement platform presents endless opportunities for growth and with SPARK® Media having the ability to be fully charity-branded, the platform can further act to establish the charity’s identity and engage with users.  

Round the clock, robust support is provided by SPARK® TSL’s UK-based service desk 24/7/365. This means that the Trust and Charity can prioritise their own tasks and not have to worry about any issues that may arise.  

Untitled design (14)
text-scroller-shape-mob
When covid hit, our hospitals had to restrict visiting meaning that patients were very isolated at the hospital. Better WiFi gave patients the chance to stay in touch with loved ones.

Hayley Pannick
Director of Development
Imperial Health Charity

text-scroller-background-shape

A Job Well Done

This year we saw a 190% increase in clicks to the charity donation button through SPARK® Media across our sites, bolstering the reach of your charity has never been easier. Click the button below to download a copy of the case study.  

NHS Charities Icon

 

 

 

To download a copy of the NHS Charities case study as a PDF, simply click the link below.

Download the case study