Sarah Weston (Hft) , Dr John Patterson (Principal), Dr Simon Bowers (CCG), Dave Horsfield (Digital Manager, CCG)Smarthouse showcasing personalised technology solutions launches at St. Vincent’s School

An innovative house showcasing a range of assistive technology to support independent living has been launched at St. Vincent’s School, Liverpool. The project is the result of a unique partnership between St Vincent’s School, NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), and Hft.

The smarthouse is a self-contained flat which showcases a variety of personalised assistive technology and how it can be used to support people with visual impairments and other disabilities to live more independently.

It includes lots of useful gadgets for daily living such as a one-cup kettle, a talking microwave, safety sensors to prevent flooding or injury, and door locks activated by fingerprint recognition which replaces the need for keys.

The smarthouse will now be based at the school as a permanent fixture, supporting pupils and staff at the school directly, as well as continuing to be used as a community resource to help raise wider awareness of the benefits of assistive technology amongst the general public.

During February we celebrated Chinese New Year with a Chinese meal followed by horoscopes for the New Year!  We also celebrated Joyce’s birthday on the same evening!

Our Social this month was again up in numbers, armchair exercise is also up on members and appears to be a firm favourite with our Residents.  We played ‘play your cards right’ this month as well as a new name that tune, and we have also introduced.  

We have now started our Book Club up again and our current book is ‘The Murder of Princess Diana’ – which is creating a good debate.  All our usual everyday activities are still up and running and going well.

We also had a choir in this month to perform in our Chapel which one of our Residents Peter was a member of – he sat with the choir and sang for us!  We had a really good turn out and all Residents who attended thoroughly enjoyed themselves!

This month our trips out have included been pub lunches and shopping trips to Dobbies, B+M and Edge Lane shopping centre.