South Downs therapist gains award for project fighting the effects of Covid-19

Therapist EA Draffan, from Rackham near Storrington, is among 21 people who will share in a £150,000 payout from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.

The trust makes grants each year to people chosen for their work in finding the world’s best solutions for the UK’s most pressing problems in every area of society.

EA will use her grant to enhance the development of an app she has helped to create which enables health and social care workers to communicate with patients who have difficulty communicating.

The app, called Boardbuilder, involves the use of charts, symbols and images, which the patient can select in order to communicate with their carer.

She said: “As a result of this support we will be able to help ensure that during the Covid-19 pandemic, many people with a communication difficulty, especially those unable to speak as a result of treatment, will have a way to connect with their doctors, nurses and carers, helping to reduce the anxiety that comes with illness.

“Communication is a right that can be lost when in a ventilator or behind masks and visors or due to a hearing, speech, language or cognitive impairment.

“This award will help us to provide a way for people to communicate needs and wants through personalised symbol and word charts that can be quickly made for any tablet or printed card.”

Winston Churchill Memorial Trust chairman Jeremy Soames, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, in whose memory the Churchill Fellowship was founded, said: “In today’s urgent situation, the Churchill Fellows’ contribution to the national effort is remarkable.

“They are proven experts in their fields, working on the frontline and making an impact where it is most needed. I believe my grandfather would have been immensely proud of what today’s Churchill Fellows are achieving in his name, during the greatest challenge our nation has faced since the war.”

Other projects receiving funding range from preventing domestic abuse, housing rough sleepers and educating children in care to expanding food production, providing trauma therapy for key workers and supporting BAME families bereaved by Covid-19.

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