Kraydel Blog

The latest news and updates.

Kraydel closes Seed Round

KRAYDEL SECURES £1.2M TO SUPPORT CARE SERVICES FOR THE ELDERLY IN THEIR OWN HOMES Health and social care technology start-up company, Kraydel, has announced today that it has secured over £1.2M in seed funding by close of 2017, all of which will be used to support the roll out of their health and well-being technology…

Kraydel at the Movies

Kraydel participated in filming during November for a programme/documentary about improving patient journeys.  The programme will be presented by former Sky newsreader and current BBC World presenter Samantha Simmonds, highlighting the huge changes taking place across primary care, secondary care, community and social care. It will focus on organisations which are redesigning the way in…

Moving on Up

We had a busy end to November moving into fabulous new offices in Belfast and London. Our London office overlooks the River Thames in the lovely Somerset House. The building was originally the site of a Tudor palace, designed by Sir William Chambers in 1776 – and we have the plumbing to prove this! Somerset…

100 elderly people a day hurt in English Care Homes

Figures from the UK’s Care Quality Commission show a 40% increase in 5 years. Injuries include broken bones and burns. The full story can be found many places such as here. This has to stop, and the only way to stop it is surveillance, or the possibility of it, at all times.

Kracked Wifi

The more techy of you may already be aware of a security vulnerability uncovered in the WPA WiFi protocol. The vulnerability is called KRACK. Unlike most security flaws, this is not a “hole” in a specific implementation of a communications protocol, it’s actually a flaw in the design of the protocol which allows someone with…

Dinner is served

I had promised to post some more details when I completed modifying my mother’s armchair. Previously I had mounted it on a turntable to make it easy for her to look out the window and enjoy her beautiful garden. The final task was to make it possible for her to eat comfortably and cleanly. The…

We’re hiring…

Kraydel is growing its development teams in Belfast and London. If you’re looking for the chance to do something really worthwhile, work with cool technologies and help us build an international business and brand, then check out our jobs at Kraydel page and get in touch.

Patients doing it for themselves

Last week I attended an event titled “Digital Transformation in Health and Wellness”, organised by the NI Connected Health Ecosystem, and hosted by InvestNI. There were several excellent speakers, but the guy that delivered the most powerful and the most entertaining speech as Professor George Crooks – CEO Digital Health and Care Institute Scotland. While…

Another report of abuse by carers

On Friday most newspapers carried the awful story of a 95 year-old woman with dementia whose family planted a hidden camera and recorded her abuse by two workers in a care home. The video can be seen on many online sites e.g. Daily Mirror I would counsel you to only watch it if you’re ready to…

Belfast: a great city for female entrepreneurs

Belfast has come a long way in the last 30 years. Well technically no of course it hasn’t, it’s exactly where it’s been since its founding in the 17th century (or alternately it’s moved over 78 billion miles relative to the rest of the Milky Way depending on your point of view – literally). After a…

Lazy Susan turns things around

The problems of the elderly are numerous. My mother is recovering from a recent fall and spending much of her day in a chair. Given the difficulty she now has rising from, and descending into, a chair, the re-ablement team rightly banned my mother’s favourite reclining swivel chair from the living room – it’s far…

Twice as much need

There was an interesting item on the BBC news web site this week.  This article describes how the length of time during which elderly people need daily care has doubled in England over the last 20 years. It’s now 2.4 years for men, and 3 years for women.  The implication is that in England alone,…

Edge run a profile of Rupinder Singh

Our chief commercial office, Rupinder Singh, has been profiled in the autumn 2017 issue of Edge which is issued by the Institute of Leadership & Management.  Check out page 24.

Health Plus Care 2017

Kraydel attended the recent Health Plus Care 2017 event in the London Excel arena as one of 7 companies hosted by Invest Northern Ireland Despite missing most of the first day because of a flight cancellation (electrical storms at Gatwick apparently) it was a good event and we were very busy with pre-arranged meetings and…

Trials and Tribulations

For the last few weeks we’ve been trialling the latest revision of the Kraydel hardware and software with some marvellous, helpful, inquisitive and adventurous residents of two of the Tafta facilities in South Africa. Tafta (The Association for the Aged) is a wonderful organisation that provides retirement homes and frail care for over 30,000 people…

Boys wreck cog mission

Google have recently launched their take on the Amazon Echo. The reviews suggest that it might be “even” better. hmmm. Well like many people who read the swooning reviews of the Echo, I rushed out and bought one. And for about a week I was thrilled with it. Now six months later it just sits…

Dispense with Pill Dispensers

A friend recently sent me a link to a crowdfunding campaign to build an automated pill dispenser for the home.  He, quite understandably, thought a gadget like this is something Kraydel would like to add to its offering. The truth is, that like most people working in this area, the idea of automated pill dispensers…

Stopping Abuse

It’s distressing to read news stories such as this: about abuse of elderly and vulnerable people in care homes. Thankfully it’s relatively rare, but it should be non-existent. There will always be those tempted to abuse their power over the weak and vulnerable, and no amount of background checking can prevent some of those with such…

Non non-obtrusive Monitoring

We like to describe Kraydel Insight as providing non-intrusive monitoring, well at Pitch @ Palace last Tuesday evening we had the complete opposite. Apart from the obvious, and necessary, police presence at St James Palace, we had the added security of a very tall, (even without bearskin) intimidating guardsman. I would like to say he…

Last chance to vote for us in Pitch at Palace People’s Choice Award

The results of recent elections and referenda have probably put about 50% of people off the idea of voting ever again.  Don’t be deterred – great things can still achieved through the exercise of democratic choice – for example you could take advantage of the, soon to be gone, opportunity to vote for Kraydel in…

Icon do it

We’ve recently been searching for an icon to represent “dementia” in our user interface.  We want to help our professional care provider customers by displaying a set of simple icons next to their pictures of their clients, to signpost whether they have visual or hearing impairment, use a wheelchair, are frail, or have dementia. There…

There were several reports today regarding imminent trials of drugs which might stop the progression of neurodegenerative brain diseases, including dementia. Clearly good news, but predictably the media were rather excitable in their reports and the academics interviewed were much more cautious. We will crack dementia sooner rather than later – there is every possible motivation…

Made in N.I.

Last year Kraydel was fortunate to be featured in a BBC TV programme about innovation in Northern Ireland.  I’ve seen trailers for a second season of the show to be broadcast later this year (which is great – there’s almost nothing which encourages innovators to keep attempting the near impossible more than some public acknowledgement…

Kodokushi

Kodokushi may be a new word for most readers, but sadly the concept it names, is going to be familiar to many.  Kodokushi is Japanese for “lonely death” and it refers to the growing phenomenon of people dying alone, and remaining undiscovered for a long period of time. Statistics on this sad end to a…

Unblock those beds

The intelligent and helpful folks at McKinsey gathered some stats to help us better understand the problem of bed blocking (thanks guys) At least once a week there’s a news story in the UK about the costs and delays to treatments resulting from bed blocking. I’m pretty sure it’s the same in every country with a…

Easy PCB

I have ambivalent feelings about physical hardware. Most of my working life has been spent in pure software businesses, and there’s a lot to be said for software products: it costs nothing to store them, nothing (or very little ) to ship them, and you don’t have to spend a bunch of money (and time)…

User Stories

Those of you familiar with software development will know that most development today captures “requirements” using a technique called “User stories”.  Each feature of the product is described using a standard structure which goes “As a <some kind of user> I want <description of something> because <benefit>”.   In the course of developing Kraydel I…

Security and Privacy

The NHS has taken a bit of a bashing lately over its agreement to allow Google to access 1.6 million patient records – un-anonymised. Smarter people than I have written at length on the potential risks and the ethics. There have also been many news stories about IoT devices like home cameras, smart door locks…

ECHA Conference Belfast March 6, 2017

Our CTO, Paul Moorhead, attended and presented at a European Connected Health Conference in Belfast today.  The ECHA and its partner organisations is growing at a fantastic rate – over 650 members. While there was a variety of speakers, the messages about provision of care to the elderly were very consistent, and I would sum…

Read all about it

Last week techUK, The TSA, Digital Health London and NHS Digital launched the 2017 Connected Health campaign online at healthawareness.co.uk and with an expert-led publication within the Guardian. You can find a copy of the Connected Health supplement that was circulated with the Guardian on March 28th here.  This was part of Mediaplanet’s 2017 Connected Health Campaign and we thank…

TV or not TV?

I was interested to read that CCGs in Staffordshire are rolling out a form of Telemedicine to connect elders with their GPs and Care Home staff with video technology.  It’s probably less than a year since I described this functionality within Kraydel to sceptical investors and was told that GPs hadn’t the time or the…

It’s funny ‘cos it’s true?

Pending a take-down notice from Private Eye, I reproduce below a cartoon from a recent issue. Sadly it IS funny in part because it’s true, or at least not greatly exaggerated. This is close to the experience of many of those receiving or providing care – it’s rush in, and rush back out again to the…

Make us “The People’s Choice” for Pitch@Palace

Our CEO, Lisa, pitched Kraydel at the Cardiff Pitch@Palace on March 24th, and… we’re on our way to the final event on April 25th in St James’s Palace! Scary stuff – a big crowd and many fantastic companies vying for the opportunity to access the Duke of York’s network of entrepreneurs, investors, influencers, buyers and generally incredible…

Kraydel to present at ECHA event in Belfast on April 6

  Kraydel will be exhibiting and presenting at the European Connected Health Alliance event “Social care planning and the role of Connected Health” in Belfast on April 6th. The event is being held in Belfast City Hall (a great venue) and features a great line up of speakers: Dave Sweeney,Director of Transformation, NHS Halton CCG &…

Loading blog posts...

Related Link