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?.