We simply want to help you understand your own body and mind better so you can live a content, happy and disease-free life.

Jo Ramsden, HealthPad
HealthPad is a stress-reducing health and wellbeing app designed to help users improve their physical and mental health by completing simple daily exercises. Including four intersecting quadrants – Change, Body, Breath, and Mind – the app aims to provide clear, easy-to-follow strategies to help users set manageable goals regarding movement, posture, breathing, and mindset that they can easily slot into their daily lives. Whereas many wellbeing apps focus on a single aspect of health, such as nutrition or mindfulness, HealthPad aimed to create a holistic product that offered users a simple introduction to a healthier way of life without any confusing jargon.
Designed to appeal both to individual users and within larger organisations, HealthPad meets EPIC’s goal of offering cost saving solutions to the NHS in the social prescription arena. By providing preventative wellbeing strategies, the app aims to reduce the need for more costly medical intervention.

Background

HealthPad founder Jo Ramsden is a yoga teacher with a longstanding interest in the prevention of chronic conditions such as depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, and stress. Her research found that:
  • Work-related stress and anxiety is the leading cause for ill health and sickness absence in Britain.1
  • 57% of all working days lost to ill health were due to stress and anxiety.
  • 5.4 million working days were lost to work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2017/18 (Labour Force Survey) with an average of 25.8 days lost per case.
Jo and her co-founders successfully raised £12,920 through a Crowdfunder campaign in 2020, enabling them to create a basic version of their app. They then began to seek out match funding as well as additional support researching ways in which to improve the app with academic evidence and focus groups.

We seem to have stopped listening to our bodies in recent times, we simply want to help you understand your own body and mind better so you can live a content, happy and disease-free life.

Jo Ramsden, HealthPad

How has EPIC helped MyHealthPad?

Following discussions with Professor Michael Hyland at the University of Plymouth, who helped MyHealthPad with their research in chronic fatigue syndrome, founder Jo reached out to EPIC. The team, led by key contact Daniela Austin, offered assistance in several key areas of development:
  • Academic advice on wireframing the app to enhance user needs, and advice on the use of psychology theories applied within the product.
  • Signpost and support in applying to the EPIC Challenge Fund.
  • Signpost support to ORCHA to receive services through EPIC, including a funded pre-launch review and/ or the full ORCHA Baseline Review.
  • Collaboratively explore opportunities for networking, and product evaluation and implementation, including support for pilot groups/ feedback and analysis.
In January 2022, this support was extended in a long-term collaboration with My HealthPad CIC to assist them with:
  • Conducting a literature review of the use of health apps in ageing populations to support Catalyst Tool funding application.
  • Conducting a feasibility/accessibility study (including recruitment of end-users, facilitating online focus groups and producing the final report) to support the co-design of a minimum viable product (MVP).
  • Signposting support to ORCHA to receive services through EPIC, including a funded pre-launch review, ensuring that the app adheres to nationally recognised digital health standards and regulations.
Additionally, EPIC arranged for My HealthPad to receive an accessibility audit of their mobile app from disability experts Purple in December 2022, providing them with detailed feedback to help them meet WC3 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The audit will help the team ensure that their app is as user friendly as possible to all audiences.

What’s next for MyHealthPad?

My HealthPad CIC used the £10,000 they were awarded from the Challenge Fund to develop a second version of their app. Improvements included adding a 5-question survey to help support user growth and development and monitor progression, as well as increased functionality to make the app more interactive.
Based on user feedback from a six-person online focus group arranged by EPIC, as well as additional user comments the team also made the app less female centric and more diverse and inclusive. By adding visuals of male models and male guided voice demos and incorporating images of users with disabilities and users from a range of ethnicities, they have widened their appeal. The team have also levelled their exercises to help guide users who may only be suited to gentle movements.
The app has been reviewed by ORCHA and the team are looking ahead to the possibility of being used as a social prescribing option by healthcare providers. They are now researching how best to market the app to increase their user base, which will likely involve an official launch supported by a series of articles on their website and a stronger social media presence. They have a volunteer helping them with their marketing and eventually hope to be able to create a paid position within the team.