Liverpool 5G consortium wins 5G technology award

The Liverpool 5G Health and Social Care has won a national award for the most innovative ‘real world’ use of 5G technology at the recent 5G Realised Conference in London.

The two-day 5G Realised Conference celebrated 5G technology and its potential to deliver benefits to a diverse range of sectors including health and social care, agriculture, transport and tourism.

The Liverpool 5G consortium, led by Sensor City includes Blu Wireless Technology, AIMES, Inventya, DefProc, Digital Creativity in Disability, CGA Simulation, EHealth Cluster, Liverpool City Council, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust (RLBUHT), Liverpool University, Liverpool John Moores University), The Medication Support Company, Safehouse and Protelhealth.

The consortium won the award for a use case at Royal Liverpool and Broadreen University Hospitals NHS Trust (RLBUHT), where 5G technology is being used to support virtual reality (VR) headsets at a palliative care ward.

It has received £3.5 million from DCMS to fund 11 testbeds and trials that will focus on providing reliable broadband to communities around parts of Liverpool with limited access.

Manage long-term conditions at home

Liverpool 5G showcased a range of technologies designed to help people manage long-term conditions at home and reduce isolation.

These include Safehouse Sensors, which are installed in homes to detect falls, changes in temperature and unusual behaviour patterns; PAMAN, which provides a video link to a pharmacy, helping people take medicines at home safely; and WarnHydrate’ a device used to detect dehydration in older people.

Rosemary Kay, Liverpool 5G Health and Social Care Project Director, said: “We are very proud to have won this award as it recognises the care and effort our members have put into creating innovative use cases that improve people’s lives.”

Liverpool 5G products include:

1. Telehealth in a box: improved communication between hospital and community
2. Cloud based clinical mobility: using 5G to accelerate mobile solutions
3. New innovative hospital (RLBUHT) providing test bed for SMEs
4. PAMAN: pharmacy to home video link
5. IoT home sensor: helping people live independently at home
6. ‘Push to Talk’: reducing loneliness in care settings
7. Loneliness gaming/quiz app: connecting people to talk and play
8. Dehydration device: remote monitoring and early prevention of dehydration
9. Analytics/research (TAE/TRE) environment with access for researchers/analysts across the UK
10. Chromatic cameras in home care settings: predict falls and unusual patterns of behaviour in older people
11. Optimise access and use of 5G networks between multiple IoT devices

Distraction therapy technique

The 5G supported VR headsets have been used at the hospital to reduce patient pain.

David Walliker, Chief Information Officer at the Royal Liverpool and Broadreen University Hospitals NHS Trust, says they have had a real impact: “Using 5G technology we have been able to expand our virtual reality (VR) use in our palliative care service to provide VR sessions for our patients who need it most. Previously the VR experience was limited to a preloaded beach or forest experience of 15 minutes, but since connecting our VR devices to Liverpool 5G Health and Social Care’s 5G network we have been able to offer patients a personalised experience as an effective distraction therapy technique. To date we’ve had 20 patients benefit from this experience with overwhelmingly positive feedback. We have also seen virtual reality used effectively for patients requiring higher levels of care in our critical care unit to help with ventilation weaning and rehabilitation.”

All testbeds funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) 5G testbed and trails programme were represented at the event, demonstrating projects developed to explore 5G’s impact on productivity and innovation across the UK’s business and public sector landscape.