Speech therapy on Galaxy quest

Families in Liverpool are being given tablet computers with wireless communications to "revolutionise" the way they receive speech therapy.

Liverpool Ccommunity Health NHS Trust’s children’s division and speech and language therapy service has formed a partnership with Liverpool John Moores University to roll out and evaluate the idea.

The ‘Keeping in Touch’ project is funded by the North West Innovation Fund, and will involve clinicians and families being given 10 inch Samsung Galaxy tablet devices, pre-installed with Skype, 3G and wireless communications.

The hope is that this will enable the trust to provide therapy sessions to children at home and in their schools.

Sheena Round, a consultant speech and language therapist who is leading the project, said: "This is a very exciting project that could totally revolutionaise the way we work.

"The project will provide children requiring speech and language therapy with interactive technologies on mobile devices, that will make treatment sessions more fun and interactive.

"We are also hoping the tablets will let us work in a different way with families, giving them an alternative mthod of accessing our therapy services, which could significantly reduce the amount of time and expense taken up travelling to and from appointments."

The project will be evaluated to establish whether the remove sessions provide the same quality of care as face to face sessions, and the results should be available this autumn.