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The Inclusiviti Chair delivers improvements through intuitively controlled Mecanum wheels. These comprise of hubs with several elliptical rollers placed at an angle around the periphery. Mounted in groups of four, Mecanum-wheeled systems achieve omnidirectional movement by varying speed and rotation direction of different wheels. This allows unrivalled manoeuvrability- crabbing and diagonal movement in a compact footprint. Further step-change improvements will be designed and tested as follows: A motorised mechanism to raise and lower so users can reach a kitchen worktop or sit at a table. An automatic tilting mechanism that increases stability on ramps and incled surfaces will increase a user's reach. The Inclusivity chair is a fraction of the cost of adapting houses for elderly residents, and will be re-usable. Close links to the University of Sheffield give access to the Centre for Assistive Technologies and Connectivity in Healthcare (CATCH), who will assist in evaluation.

Work is being underaken to validate the technical feasibility and commercial value of an innovative bed-exit sensor that has been invented by Safekeeping Solutions. The study will provide the evidence that the novel technology is desired by clinicians and can be used to develop an ACCURATE and PROMPT bed-exit sensor.

Rinicare plans to develop an integrated 24/7 non-invasive System to Avoid Fall Events (SAFE) that combines a thermal imaging (TI) optical sensor and bespoke algorithms on an embedded PC (EPC) into a Smart Surveillance Unit (SSU) to detect changes in a patient’s position in a hospital style bed. This information will be used to provide an early warning message (visual/ audio) to the clinician so the relevant action can be taken to prevent that patient falling out of the bed. The system could be used in both single rooms and wards and it is proposed the alarm system can be customised to suit the characteristics or behaviours of the patient.