(L to R) Pam Fearns, chief nursing info officer, Stephanie Bray, lead digital midwife, and Astrid Lefevre, lead digital nurse at Stockport NHS Basis Belief (Credit score: Stockport NHS FT)
Stockport NHS Basis Belief has gone reside with a healthcare language app from CardMedic, enabling its employees to speak confidently with sufferers who face language or communication boundaries.
The platform from Rewired Pitchfest 2022 champion CardMedic was rolled out throughout the organisation on 27 October 2025 to assist employees and sufferers talk safely and successfully regardless of language boundaries, cognitive impairment or literacy.
It supplies instantaneous entry to reside interpreters in additional than 200 languages by way of Language Line, alongside 1000’s of clinically validated scripts in a number of languages and codecs, together with British Signal Language (BSL), Straightforward Learn, and Learn Aloud, in addition to supporting well being literacy for identical language sufferers by explaining info in plain language.
Pam Fearns, chief nursing info officer at Stockport NHS Basis Belief, who led the mission’s implementation, stated: “CardMedic will allow sufferers to voice their wants the place beforehand they could have struggled to speak them.
“All conversations — reminiscent of asking whether or not somebody needs a cup of tea, explaining a process, or providing reassurance — play an important function in making certain inclusivity. CardMedic permits equality throughout our companies.”
The belief supplies acute and group well being companies to a various inhabitants of round 300,000 individuals throughout Stockport, that means that reliance on face-to-face decoding has led to quickly rising annual prices, and communication boundaries have impacted affected person expertise and security.
Introducing CardMedic is anticipated to assist tackle these pressures by offering employees with a single level of entry to a set of clinically designed communication help instruments.
CardMedic can be deployed throughout 455 SPAROk Fusion affected person bedside gadgets on 20 wards at the belief’s Stepping Hill Hospital.
Dr Rachael Grimaldi, co-founder and chief medical officer of CardMedic, stated: “Stockport NHS Basis Belief has demonstrated what equitable care in motion seems like. No affected person can be left with no voice of their care.
“By embedding CardMedic throughout wards and bedside gadgets, enabled by way of our partnership with SPARK TSL, they’re enabling communication that’s instantaneous, protected, and scalable.
“The partnership received’t simply enhance look after sufferers who face a language barrier. With CardMedic’s Straightforward Learn and Learn Aloud codecs, it additionally helps help improved well being literacy when language isn’t the principle subject.”
SPARK TSL companions with greater than 80 NHS trusts throughout the UK to ship its SPARK platform that connects sufferers, employees, and programs on the bedside.
Jane Stephenson, chief govt at SPARK TSL, stated: “This pioneering mission demonstrates how know-how can strengthen patient-centred care.
“We’re proud to be working with Stockport NHS Basis Belief and CardMedic on embedding inclusive communication help in our SPARK Fusion bedside gadgets. Collectively, we’re making healthcare extra accessible for all.”
Earlier this yr CardMedic was awarded virtually £500,000 in funding from SBRI Healthcare in April 2025 earlier than securing £411,000 from Innovate UK’s SMART grant programme.
