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Notts Healthcare launches interactive walks App to boost physical and mental health

Nottinghamshire Healthcare has partnered with Nottingham Trent University (NTU) to develop their own Tag 4 Active Lives interactive app for patients and staff at Highbury Hospital, a Trust site providing adult mental health and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities services.

Mobile phone
The app will offer a treasure hunt and immersive experience

This exciting app will offer a unique treasure hunt and immersive experience to keep patients engaged while exploring the ‘Highbury Mile’, a route already familiar with patients and staff at the hospital. Previously, patients who walked the ‘Highbury Mile’ as part of their exercise regime, felt the route had become repetitive.

The Tag 4 Active Lives app will feature a unique interactive and personalised treasure hunt through the use of physical wireless sensors and tags located around the hospital’s grounds.

The app will task users with tapping tags, identifying tagged objects using the object recognition challenge and answer educational and supportive information, creating both a physical and virtual game world in a real and open environment. This includes co-designed and co-created papier máché objects with our inpatient service users.

Louise Randle, Head of Transformation for Local Mental Health Services, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to promote the benefits of physical activity for mental health. We know that connecting people to nature based ‘green’ activities can have a very positive effect on someone’s recovery and longer-term strategies for staying well. Another benefit is the social connections that people experience as a result of taking part which again is very supportive of the persons recovery journey. This is an exciting development and forms part of a wider ambition to increase our offer of green social prescribing to patients within our services.”

The Tag 4 Active Lives app has been funded by NTU and is part of NTUs Tag with Me platform. Central to the platform is fully custom apps, automated guides and personalised experiences which work indoors and outdoors.

Eiman Kanjo, Professor of Pervasive Computing in Nottingham Trent University’s School of Science and Technology, and the Smart Sensing Lab lead who created Tag 4 Active Lives, said: “We are very pleased that we have been able to work with Nottinghamshire Healthcare and offer our social prescribing platform for the hospital patients and staff. Tag 4 Active Lives encourages people to be physically active while engaging with personalized activities and challenges. The app also promotes well-being through positive messages and engagement with their local green open spaces.

“In the future, we plan to extend our collaboration with Nottinghamshire Healthcare and utilise the platform to further support other locations and patients who will benefit from our technologies.”

Dr Julie Attfield, Executive Director of Local Mental Health Services, said: “I am thrilled that we have been able to work collaboratively with NTU to offer this exciting app, not only for our patients but for our staff at Highbury Hospital. We know that regular exercise can have a positive impact on our mental health. This interactive app will further enhance the physical activity amongst our patients, improve mental wellbeing and bring education and supportive information at their fingertips.”

To celebrate the launch of our Tag 4 Active Lives app and showcase the collaboration with the Trust and NTU, a celebration and health event will take place on 20 July at Highbury Hospital with colleagues, Active Lives partners and local community networks.

  • Notes for editors

    Press enquiries please contact Dave Rogers, Public Relations Manager, on telephone +44 (0)115 848 8782, or via email.

    About Nottinghamshire Healthcare

    Nottinghamshire Healthcare is positive about providing integrated healthcare services, including mental health, learning disability and physical health services. Over 9000 dedicated staff provide these services in a variety of settings, ranging from the community through to acute wards, as well as secure settings. The Trust manages two medium secure units, Arnold Lodge in Leicester and Wathwood Hospital in Rotherham, and the high secure Rampton Hospital near Retford.  It also provides healthcare in prisons across the East Midlands. Its budget for 2020/21 is £470m.

    Visit the website at www.nottinghamshirehealthcare.nhs.uk

    About Nottingham Trent University

    Nottingham Trent University (NTU) received the Queens Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2021 for cultural heritage science research. It is the second time that NTU has been bestowed the honour of receiving a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for its research, the first being in 2015 for leading-edge research on the safety and security of global citizens.

    The Research Excellence Framework (2021) classed 83% of NTU’s research activity as either world-leading or internationally excellent. 86% of NTU’s research impact was assessed to be either world-leading or internationally excellent.

    NTU was awarded Outstanding Support for Students 2020 (Times Higher Education Awards). It was the University of the Year 2019 (Guardian University Awards, UK Social Mobility Awards), Modern University of the Year 2018 (Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide) and University of the Year 2017 (Times Higher Education Awards).

    NTU is the 5th largest UK institution by student numbers, with over 33,000 students and more than 4,000 staff located across five campuses. It has an international student population of 4,000 and an NTU community representing around 160 countries.

    In the past 15 years, NTU has invested £450 million in tools, technology and facilities.

    NTU is in the UK’s top 10 for number of applications and ranked first for accepted offers (2019 UCAS UG acceptance data) It is also among the UK’s top five recruiters of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

    75% of NTU students go on to graduate-level employment or graduate-entry education / training within fifteen months of graduating (Guardian University Guide 2021).

    NTU is 4th globally (and 3rd in the UK) for sustainability in the 2021 UI Green Metric University World Rankings (out of more than 900 participating universities).

Published on 30 June 2022
  • Subject area: Computing, engineering, maths and other technologies
  • Category: Press office; Research; School of Science and Technology