Suffolk County Council has recently awarded a contract worth £80,000 to Spark Emerging Technologies Ltd to build a co-produced platform for supported virtual reality experiences to people living with dementia in Suffolk. This bold and nationally trail-blazing contract was funded through the Suffolk 2020 Fund which, in the wake of the Covid pandemic, was established to support a variety of county-wide initiatives, including the areas of technology and innovation.
The council’s Digital Care Team developed an ambitious proposal based on over 10 years of clinical research that people living with dementia can derive enormous benefits in wellbeing, cognition and communication through access to VR.
Despite this significant body of evidence, and although there are a small number of companies trying to commercialise VR in the social care sector, there are very few care settings in Suffolk where people with dementia can currently access VR experiences. Now that VR headsets have reached an accessible consumer price-point and are even beginning to become household items, the council would like to catalyse the availability of this life enhancing technology in Suffolk.
Following a competitive open tender process which commenced in 2022, the procurement was won by Spark, who will develop a new brand for a specialist VR application in co-production with service users living with dementia in Suffolk.
The contract will be split into two halves, with the first phase involving the creation of a service user group who will be involved in all aspects of the look, design and structure of the VR app and solution and ensure that it is fit for purpose. The app will enable the safety of people with dementia through pairing the VR headset with a tablet, this will enable a formal or informal carer to drive the VR experience for the person living with dementia and critically to pause, stop or skip the VR experience if the person with dementia is becoming tired or in any way distressed.
Another important part of Phase 1 of the contract will be the creation of a diverse and stimulating range of VR experiences for people with dementia to experience. This will build on a county-wide appeal for suggestions on what Suffolk-based places and activities would have the most impact for people living with dementia as well as a national competition to obtain suitable VR content across a wide range of categories.
Each of the VR films will be trialled across all the different care settings where people with dementia live and attend, from day centres and extra-care schemes to residential and nursing homes. In the second phase of the contract, Spark will be allowed to openly commercialise the solution whilst enabling all accredited care settings in Suffolk to benefit from an exclusive significantly reduced discount on the price of the solution.
