What people say

This is a badly needed and most welcome service. It may well make us think seriously about how we connect with our patients, especially the aged.

I can’t wait to try this in Sicily … You have created something truly life changing …. When my mum said last night “I’ll be part of what’s going on” I realised that this was when she realised the impact of this little screen… for her the hardest part of being isolated has been not feeling included in life outside and she could suddenly see that changing! Exciting times!

As the NHS increasingly hits the inevitable buffers of being the final common pathway for so many vulnerable, distressed and lonely people, we simply have to focus on ways of re-­connecting our communities, families, friends and valued carers. Visbuzz is a vital way of doing just this and I highly recommend commissioners, providers of care and families to implement a solution that will help people to plug back in to each other.

We were due to launch our loneliness strategy and we have done some major work with local people; together with the local authority we have asked questions about our commissioning strategy and the strong theme of that was social isolation and loneliness, which is not something people talk about that often. The loneliness strategy, the information technology strategy – there are all these things we have to have as statutory bodies that give us a mainframe in terms of pushing forward.

Visbuzz is right at the heart of it: it’s an offer that will fit a good proportion of the population. The simplicity of this – having the recognised faces on the front and having to press – and the communication between the simplicity of it, is perfect. That’s the winning element.

A lot of people who are older – in their eighties or nineties – their sons or daughters are probably in their seventies and have their own problems. This is going to be such a good item for them to have to keep them connected in their family circle.

It’s a user -friendly system whereby it’s a touch screen. They’ve got nothing else to do, apart from touch a picture of the person they want to talk to, and the system does the rest for them.

It is so simple to use, so those who are more elderly and more technophobes, it’s not going to be completely foreign and difficult to use. I think it’s really good.

I’ve got an 87-­year-­old mother and new technology just phases her out altogether. So the fact that she just has to push somebody’s nose to get a call through just can’t be bettered.