About Us
All around us patients with visual impairments live their everyday lives, often not followed by a guide dog or a white cane.
Their trip to a pharmacy however is much different as they may struggle to differentiate between medications, read labels and safety information, putting them at increased risk of potentially harmful medication errors.
After two co-design meetings brought together a group of patients with vision impairments and community pharmacists, the idea of FLAG-Me Vision was born.
An eye-catching logo denoting vision impairment if displayed automatically on pharmacy computers, could alert pharmacists who to offer one-to-one consultations to by sharing strategies with the aim of improving medication safety and meeting the Accessible Information Standard.
We extended FLAG-Me to create our ‘Sound’ search, informed by focus groups for people with hearing impairments and pharmacists. The presence of deaf/partial hearing logo will prompt pharmacists to offer one-to-one consultations. Hearing impairment-related strategies will be shared with the aim of improving medication safety and meeting the Accessible Information Standard.
UPDATE: People with a dual sensory loss (where both vision and sound logos are displayed) can also be identified using this system.
Our Stories
“I am a Research Fellow at the Patient Safety Translational Research Centre at the University of Manchester. My work in Medication Safety adopts a patient-centred approach to maximise its’ impact in real-world settings. I am the founder of FLAG-Me Vision which was co-produced with people with vision impairment and community pharmacists to improve medication safety in this patient group.”
Lisa Riste
“I am a senior software engineer and research fellow at the University of Manchester. I have led the development and implementation of several award winning web applications for reducing patient harm.”
Richard Williams
‘I am a qualified Pharmacist with 20 years of experience. I have been involved with the Patient Safety Collaborative at Manchester University in helping to improve Patient Safety in Community Pharmacy since 2015. For the last 17 months I have also been providing software training for community pharmacy staff as well as medication administration training for care home staff.
Nish Gangani
FLAG-Me Vision Team
“Working on the FLAG-Me project has been very rewarding as the results will ultimately help to keep visually impaired patients safer in the future.“
Sam Hirst
“FLAG-Me was unlike any other project I worked on as its very nature and goal drove everyone forward. It was an incredibly stimulating experience.”
Martin Smolko
“My name is Kim Jaye and I am severely visually impaired. I am a volunteer for RNIB and have bought my experience and knowledge to help support and assist the team.”
Kim Jaye
“As a person who suffers with a vision impairment I provided support and ideas and opinions on on what what I thought should be included in this project and also feedback on the completed work.“
Abu Akram
FLAG-Me Sound Team
“FLAG-Me already had so much potential to help sight impaired people. It’s been a fantastic and motivating experience working with Lisa to expand the current software to supporting the hearing impaired.”
Will Newton
“It’s been amazing to see the development of a MedTech system through this project, and to see the patient engagement at every step of the journey”
Lucy Porte
“I’m Julie Bennett, I work for RNIB and also sight loss Council (Merseyside). I’m in my 70’s, am severely sight impaired (Blind) and also deaf. My guide dog Polly (now retired), is my constant companion.
I bring my personal experience to help improve medication safety for people with impairments. Dare I say it’s been an eye opener working on this project, and having the opportunity to see the issues from both patient and pharmacy perspectives.”
Julie Bennett
