Our Partnership with Alder Hey Children's Charity

As a world-renowned charity, Alder Hey Children's Charity raises vital funds to help make Alder Hey Children's Hospital a truly world-class, patient-friendly hospital for the 330,000 patients and families they care for every year.

Since April 2013, over £45.9m has been raised for a range of life-saving medical equipment and facilities that are making a real difference to families every day.

This year, we're hoping to help this fantastic charity in their campaign to support children with asthma with brand new revolutionary products that will change the lives of hundreds of thousands of asthma sufferers throughout the UK.

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Asthma Wearables Project

The Problem

  • 1.1 million children in the UK suffer with asthma
  • Asthma, is the most common long term medical condition amongst children and young people, resulting in many simply being unable to breath
  • With the unpredictability of an asthma attack, patients and their families are less likely to go on holiday, take part in sports or live the life they would want to live
  • It is difficult to distinguish what triggers an individual’s episode and consequently this restricts their life due to fear of attacks
  • The damages of an asthma attack are similar to that of smoking one pack of cigarettes per day
  • Children are poor at self-management and do not understand the implications of not managing their condition resulting in attendance to A&E
  • Supporting individuals to manage their condition, increases a healthier lifestyle which reduces the need & costs from the NHS (approx. £1.1 billion per year)
  • Asthma Care UK recognises that wearable technology could significantly improve self-management of asthma (Asthma Care UK, 2018)
  • Young asthma patients have shown to have poor compliance with their condition. By not taking their medication or attending clinic, their self-management of asthma is neglected
  • A lack of compliance & engagement increases the likelihood of children fearing an attack as they are less prepared to handle this when an episode occurs
  • It requires careful monitoring and control during childhood to reduce further complications later in life.

The Solution

At Alder Hey, they are researching into the ideal solution to address the problem, a solution that would inform, track and predict; wearable technology that will improve self-management, increase engagement and reduce the occurrence of preventable asthma attacks.

There are currently products on the market that track certain variables however there isn’t a solution that fits all.

The initial stage of this project is estimated to cost £150,000. This funding covers the cost of resources including; clinical, research & development, software and prototyping.

Work packages for the initial stage of the project include:

  • Problem Validation & Solution Scoping
  • Patient Engagement Platform Framework
  • Data Collection & Analytics Review
  • Wearable Sensor PoC Development
  • Research Trials/Proof of Concept Testing
  • Project Management

A Message from SLG

“We are proud to announce that Alder Hey Children’s Hospital will be our SLG charity for 2020 and specifically our partnership with the goal of raising as much money as possible to tackle asthma amongst children.

Asthma is the most common chronic disease amongst children in the world and in the UK there are 1.1m children currently being treated for asthma, which is an incredible 1 in every 11 children. Tragically 15 children die as a result of asthma in the UK every year and that’s 15 too many. In a world of so many technological advancements it seems plainly wrong that asthma is affecting so many children, with knock on effects such as inability to carry out physical exercise, do something as simple as travel on a school trip or integrate with their friends in the playground environment. Most child asthma suffers continue with the disease into adulthood resulting in 5.4 million people being treated for asthma in the UK every year with 3 people dying every day. There are so many other secondary health problems directly related to asthma such as obesity, other respiratory diseases and mental health problems.

At SLG we will work with Alder Hey to specifically target raising £150,000 in 2020 to help in pioneering research and development to target asthma amongst children.The goal is that this research and development will not only help children throughout the UK, but internationally through Alder Hey’s position as one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals. With over 5 million people suffering from asthma in the UK, then statistically many people within the SLG family either suffer from asthma themselves or indeed have children or child relatives who have this disease. There is nothing more precious in this world than children and we want to play a part in helping. Over the next weeks and months we will be actively giving you more information about Alder Hey and what we want to achieve and how you can help”