The team is delighted to win funding with , our charity partner, from . We will use the grant to develop a tool to help parents to manage their children’s medicines.
Working with , we have seen first-hand the challenges that families face when caring for a child with complex health needs at home. We are developing a tool that will help parents and carers, for example, to record when medicines are given and to set reminders. It will be particularly useful when several people are caring for one child. The record of doses will also be useful when discussing treatment with healthcare professionals. In creating this tool, we want to empower parents and carers to manage their medicines safely. We will be working closely with parents and carers during the development process and consulting with paediatric healthcare professionals.
The 2018 Tech for Good programme will help 13 not-for-profit organisations to develop digital innovations that create social change. A key aim is for innovations to be sustainable, and suitable for scale up to reach more users. Chosen projects are given funding and access to dedicated technical expertise for 9 months, starting in July 2018. Training days will enable funded projects to connect with each other and to meet Tech for Good experts. Medicines for Children’s digital partner in developing the medicines management tool is . They are a digital agency who specialise in social enterprise projects, and are experts in using technology to address social issues.
The completed Tech for Good projects will be demonstrated at a public event organised by Comic Relief in March 2019, with the official launch of our product at the RCPCH annual conference in May 2019. You can find out more about the Comic Relief Tech for Good Programme here. If you are a parent, carer, young person or health care professional who would like to be involved in the development of this app, please get in touch with the development team at medicines.leaflets@rcpch.ac.uk.
In addition, if you would like to be involved with the Medicines for Children project, we are currently looking for healthcare professionals to review our published medicines information. Please contact us on medicines.leaflets@rcpch.ac.uk to find out more.