ChargeBox at the NHS – Small Improvements That Make A Big Impact

phone charging station at NHS hospital
When we installed a free-to-use ChargeBox for patients and visitors in the Emergency Department of the William Harvey Hospital little did we know what the reaction would be?  

The hospital charity that funded the service tweeted about its arrival.  143 Retweets, 85 Quote Tweets and 1,369 Likes later, here are some of the highlights of those responses:

 ‘Great idea for the new ED build’.  ‘Love this!  We’ll definitely look at it’.  ‘Great idea, something we can think about for @EDQEH1?’  ‘Look at this fab idea! 😍@StarsAppeal’.  ‘Great idea for patients’.  ‘Can we do this???’.  ‘What an amazing idea! Well done.👍’  ‘What a brilliant idea – do we have one of these in our ED?’ NorthMidNHS.  ‘Excellent idea!’  “Love this!’  




Positive validations from NHS staff continued to flow… 

Chief Nursing Officer, Evonne Hunt at Medway NHS Trust said ‘What a brilliant idea!’.  
Joel Bonner, Patient Experience Lead at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust commented: ‘the sort of thing I had in mind!’ to which Sally Hayes, Deputy Divisional Director Quality & Nursing Medicine said ‘Yep! Saw that last night! Go for it!’  




Other comments even made us chuckle as curiosity about the new Chargebox grew.  ‘Where do we buy one of these beauties???’ Really, Clare?  But thank you 🙏  And Sarah 😂 ’Please can we have one for Christmas?’  ‘How groovy is this!?  Yeah, baby!

But Clare Campion, Interim Director of Nursing & Quality at The Children’s Trust and Registered Nurse Brian Webster summed up best why having charged up, connected devices at hospitals are essential.

‘Fantastic initiative, well done! That will make such a difference to people who are there for far longer than they’d like to be, and left home in a hurry without a charged phone, or spare battery. Will take a lot of anxiety away. 👏’

‘Person centredness.  I helped someone today in ICU get their phone and tablet charged and WiFi connected then facilitated a video call with family. They didn’t care (verbally) about all the clinical skills I did all day but for this, they couldn’t thank me enough!’

And patient Douglas Bilton also gave us a valuable review of the service. ‘This is such a great idea. I’ve had to go to A&E 3 times this year and on each, phone charging has been a concern.’
So as you can see, keeping patients’ devices charged is essential.  We hear this all the time in our conversations with NHS partners so it’s rewarding to see it stated openly and genuinely for all to see.

About ChargeBox:
ChargeBox is the trusted, safe and secure charging provider at over twenty NHS Trusts because our service will:
Alleviate stress as patients and visitors can stay connected with loved ones, access critical information and stay entertained.
Increase staff productivity as they no longer have to deal with charging requests.
Support the increased volume of mobile devices within the NHS as pagers are phased out.
Reduce the uncontrolled use of sockets which can result in health and safety risks – Estate and Facilities Alert Dec 2018

Tell us about your local hospital – is device charging a service you think is essential these days?.

Why it’s essential to keep passenger smart phones charged and connected at the airport.

passenger smart phone charged connected airport
The pandemic has made the world even more reliant on smart phones, with major travel and retail hubs striving to make their operations as contactless as possible.

We all know how stressful travel can be, and airports come with their own added baggage!  And having a flat or low phone battery is only going to make matters worse.

Before a passenger journey begins, the smartphone has already been integral to organising the travel.  Who checks in at the airport anymore?  Most passengers save valuable time and don’t risk a queue by checking in before arrival.   When they arrive at the airport, they’ve likely booked their parking through a mobile app or confirmed a meeting location with a concierge service.

It’s at the airport where the smart phone becomes indispensable. Of course, free wifi is available at most airports, but with the improvement of mobile telecoms and 5G, most people can happily manage without wifi. 
But can they manage with a low or flat smart phone battery?  Absolutely not.  

Here are FIVE reasons why keeping passengers’ phones charged and connected is essential:

Do you want passengers to use your airport app? 
As Gatwick say in their marketing, “Get Gatwick in the palm of your hand and turn your smart phone into a trusty companion to get you to and through the airport hassle-free”.  Airports want the opportunity to start a direct dialogue with their customers and make money from the journey through the added value the apps offer.  In exchange, they provide live updates about your flight, security information and times, discounted offers and even collecting pre-ordered food.

Using electronic tickets/boarding passes
A fast, convenient and hygienic way to show documents.  But more importantly, an environmentally friendly way to reduce paper waste that avoids unnecessary printouts.  For example, when flying EasyJet and using their app you can save up to eight boarding passes per flight and you don’t need to be online to access them.  One-third of boarding passes were digital in 2019 so that percentage will have grown exponentially post-pandemic.

To pay for things
 The adoption of mobile payments like Apple and Google Pay has exploded.  People no longer carry a wallet or purse as often as they used to.  Not constrained by the £100 contactless limit and more secure than a card, mobile payments are the future.  The global market penetration of Apple Pay is significant and the UK leads the way with over 60% of Apple users who use it.  So keep passenger spending easy and simple.

Stay connected
Make calls, email, message work, family and friends.  And of course, stay connected on social media.  It’s what our devices were designed to do.  Video calls are the new normal, 1 in 3 people have made one in the last month and 7 in 10 UK adults are making them weekly.  But they drain your phone battery.  A regular call uses approximately 0.33% of battery a minute whereas a video call uses somewhere between 1-2%, up to six times more drain!  Using social media combines the battery drain double whammy of video sharing and location-based services.  Do you want influencers to share how much they love the airport experience on TikTok?  You better make sure they can keep their phone charged.

Entertainment
It’s inevitable that flights might be delayed, need rescheduling or even be subject to cancellation – but what do passengers want to do when there’s a hiccup to travel plans? Most likely, watch their favourite TV shows or games for kids.  Keeping devices charged not only removes low battery anxiety but also helps keep passengers entertained and distracted from the worry caused by disruption.  

So if you want happy passengers, you know what to do!