Will Jackson, Playphysio: transforming the lives of thousands of chronically sick children

Playphysio has a big, hairy and audacious goal: to reduce the cost of care by £20m per year for children with cystic fybrosis.

In this episode of the Make An Impact podcast, Will explains how Playphysio is using technology to make a real impact on the lives and health of children with cystic fybrosis as well as making huge savings for the NHS.

Playphysio develops software and electronic monitors to monitor physiotherapy treatment for chronically sick children - enabling them to become "players not patients."

Will covers:

His and his daughter's daily struggle managing her original treatment, which inspired family arguments and led Will to realise thousands of families experience the same frustrations.Why he launched Playphysio as a community interest company and became an accidental social entrepreneur.Getting a place on the Cambridge Social Ventures programme.Transferable skills from his previous careers as a product designer and running a web development company.The development path, integrating software with hardware and gaining regulatory approvals.How the app reduces the number of times a nurse has to visit their patients and increases children's happiness at appointments.Collecting data demonstrating improvements in patients' medical conditions and the potential to reduce the cost of care by £20 million.The customisable format of the app format means in the future it could be used for other medical conditions and types of treatment Social investment: Playphysio secured a loan from Foundation East, unlocking a further grant and enabling continued development.Will’s biggest lesson (so far) and how to contact him and Playphysio.

Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review or rating! And if you are interested in being interviewed and are from an existing social enterprise creating a proven impact, please contact presenter Heidi Fisher at Make An Impact CIC.

Hi, I’m Heidi Fisher, the host of the Make an Impact Podcast. I'm an impact measurement expert, passionate about helping you make a bigger impact in the world by maximising the impact your services have.

I can help you to measure, manage and communicate the impact you have better to funders, investors, commissioners and other stakeholders, and to systemise your data collection and analysis so that it frees up time and doesn’t become an additional burden.

I love helping you to measure social and economic impacts, including Social Return on Investment or value for money assessments, as part of understanding the change you make to peoples’ lives.

You can get in touch via LinkedIn or the website makeanimpactcic.co.uk if you’d like to find out more about working with me.