Wellness
Stockport NHS Foundation Trust ends the “silent era” with CardMedic roll-out
Stockport NHS Foundation Trust has gone live with CardMedic across the organisation, enabling its 6,300-strong workforce to communicate more clearly and confidently with patients who face language or communication barriers.
CardMedic is a digital healthcare communication platform that allows staff and patients to communicate safely and effectively irrespective of language barriers, cognitive impairment or literacy.
The platform provides instant access to live interpreters in 200+ languages via Language Line, alongside thousands of clinically validated scripts in multiple languages and formats, including British Sign Language (BSL), Easy Read, and Read Aloud.
It also supports health literacy for same language patients by explaining information in plain language, clearly and succinctly.
The Trust provides acute and community health services to a population of around 300,000 people across Stockport.
Pam Fearns, Chief Nursing Information Officer at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, led the project’s implementation.
“CardMedic will enable patients to voice their needs where previously they may have struggled to communicate them,” she said.
“All conversations — such as asking whether someone wants a cup of tea, explaining a procedure, or offering reassurance — play a vital role in ensuring inclusivity.
“CardMedic enables equality across our services.”
With a diverse community, reliance on face-to-face interpreting has led to rapidly increasing annual costs, and communication barriers have increasingly impacted patient experience and safety.
Introducing CardMedic will help address these pressures by providing staff with a single point of access to a suite of clinically designed communication support tools.
The cost-effective, vendor-agnostic platform connects staff to the Trust’s existing language service providers via its Call an Interpreter feature, accessible on any device and any location.
Streamlined access will reduce use of disparate and ad hoc solutions, empowering staff to deliver more efficient and equitable care.
This groundbreaking collaboration will see CardMedic deployed across 455 SPARK Fusion® patient bedside devices on 20 wards at the Trust’s Stepping Hill Hospital.
This integration brings universal communication support directly to the bedside, giving patients and clinicians greater access, privacy, speed, and confidence in every interaction.
The Trust has taken a “big bang” approach to launching CardMedic, introducing it across all its acute and community settings. From day one, it has been available in all inpatient areas to maximise reach and equity of access.
Key areas of engagement include emergency, maternity, and acute medical units, supported by digital nurses, midwives, and clinical champions across the organisation.
The rollout also extends to community staff, including community midwives, school nurses, allied healthcare professionals, Macmillan nurses and district nurses.
The launch is backed by an extensive communications campaign using the slogan ‘the silent era is over’.
This term was coined by Karen Lawrence in the Digital Skills Team following discussions with the Digital Nursing Team about giving a voice to the “silent patient”.
This gave her the idea of silent movies in black and white. Now the introduction of CardMedic is bringing colour back to these patients as they are no longer silenced.
The rollout reflects the Trust’s commitment to its core CARE values of Compassion, Accountability, Respect, and Excellence.
It also aligns with regional efforts to reduce inequalities and national priorities such as the Patient safety healthcare inequalities reduction framework, the Accessible Information Standard, and the Core20PLUS5 Health Inequalities Programme.
The Trust’s passion for equitable care is evident throughout the partnership.
The top five non-English languages spoken in the local area are Farsi, Urdu, Arabic, Kurdish Sorani, and Cantonese. To support the Trust’s community, CardMedic is adding Kurdish Sorani to its platform for the first time.
Dr Rachael Grimaldi, CEO and Co-Founder of CardMedic, said: “Stockport NHS Foundation Trust has demonstrated what equitable care in action looks like.
“No patient will be left without a voice in their care.
“By embedding CardMedic across wards and bedside devices, enabled through our partnership with SPARK TSL, they’re enabling communication that is instant, safe, and scalable.
“The partnership won’t just improve care for patients who face a language barrier. With CardMedic’s Easy Read and Read Aloud formats, it also helps support improved health literacy when language isn’t the main issue.”
Jane Stephenson, CEO at SPARK TSL, added: “This pioneering project demonstrates how technology can strengthen patient-centred care.
“ We’re proud to be working with Stockport NHS Foundation Trust and CardMedic on embedding inclusive communication support in our SPARK Fusion® bedside devices.
“Together, we’re making healthcare more accessible for all.”
Small bowel microbiome differences between women and men may help explain why some conditions are more common in women, a study suggests.
The small bowel microbiome is the community of microorganisms living in this part of the digestive tract, where they play vital roles in immune function, metabolism and hormonal regulation.
Researchers found differences between women and men in the composition and organisation of these microbial communities. One bacterial community containing Granulicatella was found only in women.
The study was conducted by investigators at Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University.
Ruchi Mathur, director of clinical research and clinical operations for the Medically Associated Science and Technology (MAST) Program at Cedars-Sinai and corresponding author of the study, said: “One intriguing finding was a bacterial community containing Granulicatella, which we found only in women.
“Bacteria in this community appear at increased levels in women with polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, formerly known as polycystic ovary syndrome.”
The researchers also identified differences between women and men in how microbes in the small bowel produce fructans, complex carbohydrates known to trigger digestive symptoms in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
IBS is far more common in women than men.
Mathur, who is also a professor of medicine, said: “Our findings show that biological sex is a critical variable in the small bowel microbiome.
“We must consider it as we move toward more personalised approaches to understanding and treating disease.”
Weight loss surgery was linked to more regular periods and fewer polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) symptoms in women aged 18 to 45 living with obesity in a recent study.
The researchers recommend that women undergoing the procedure have access to preconception care and reproductive counselling to support their reproductive health.
Researchers at the University of Surrey analysed data over 24 months from 84 women who underwent bariatric surgery and 18 women living with obesity who did not have surgery.
Of those who underwent surgery, 49 had gastric bypass procedures and 35 had gastric sleeve surgery.
Women who underwent metabolic bariatric surgery lost more than 30kg on average at 12 and 24 months after the procedure.
Among women with polycystic ovaries, the condition persisted in only 10 per cent after 24 months.
Women also reported a resolution of clinical hirsutism, or excess body hair, by 12 months.
Women who had previously experienced irregular periods reported more regular menstrual cycles after surgery.
Professor Martin Whyte, co-author of the study and professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Surrey, said: “A large proportion of those undergoing bariatric surgery are women of reproductive age, who may be planning a pregnancy in the coming years.
“So much remains unknown about the impact of this type of surgery on women who are planning to have children.
“This raises the question of when the ideal time after surgery is to conceive.”
Women have a higher prevalence of obesity than men, with 57 per cent of women in the UK classified as overweight and 27 per cent living with obesity, which can affect fertility and the health of an unborn baby.
The researchers said 17 women had healthy pregnancies following surgery.
Although this was not specifically examined in the study, no difference in birth weight was observed between babies conceived within or after the first year.
Dr Kathryn Hart, co-author of the study and associate professor in nutrition and dietetics at the University of Surrey, said: “What we have found is that bariatric surgery positively affects the reproductive health of women living with obesity and can improve the likelihood of them having a healthy pregnancy after surgery.
“Dysregulated hormone levels, irregular periods and conditions such as polycystic ovaries are affected by obesity.
“By reducing this, what we have seen is that it can lead to improvements without the need for medication.
“We would suggest that clinicians consider medical intervention for obesity to treat irregularities in the menstrual cycle and issues with fertility.”
Young women are more likely than young men to get health and wellness information from social media influencers, a US survey has found.
Among adults aged 18 to 29, 57 per cent of women said they received health and wellness information from influencers, compared with 47 per cent of men.
The Pew Research Center study surveyed 5,023 US adults and examined how young people consume health and wellness content online.
Local university students said influencer content frequently appeared in their social media feeds.
Kabija Koroma, a local university student, said: “It’s more exercise stuff, more like protein and like meals and like how to get ready and like the outfits of the day of videos on TikTok or lately. My favourite ones.”
About 51 per cent of women under 30 said they often consumed influencer content focused on beauty and personal appearance, compared with 18 per cent of men.
The study also found that 21 per cent of women often saw content about therapies outside mainstream medicine, compared with 10 per cent of men.
At least one-third of both young women and young men often encountered influencer content about mental health and weight loss. Around half or more of both groups regularly saw fitness-related content.
Another local university student, Ania Davis, said: “I see a lot like how to meal prep and how to get your morning started. Affirmations stuff. But I do also ask the adults around me because sometimes the internet is not right.”
Researchers also looked at why young adults sought health and wellness information from influencers.
About 51 per cent of young women said they watched the content because they wanted to change their health or lifestyle.
Women were also more likely than men to say they enjoyed hearing from people who shared their background or beliefs, at 23 per cent compared with 14 per cent.
Nineteen per cent of young women said they used influencer content to learn about topics they did not want to ask their doctors about, compared with 10 per cent of young men.
Despite regularly using social media, some students said they did not rely solely on influencer content when making decisions about their health and wellness.
Koroma said: “I’m always on TikTok 24/7 and Instagram, but I also like to ask people older than me because I don’t know everything.”
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