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 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…

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…

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.

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…

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…

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.

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…

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 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…

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…

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,…

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.

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

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)…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…