Developing a medicines management app

Since the Medicines for Children’s website launched over fifteen ago, we have received many requests for additional support to help parents/carers manage their children’s medicines. Our users, who now number over 3 million, have been asking for a mobile app with users telling us that they would like this app to build on the information provided by the main Medicines for Children website. However, they would like a more personalised service with ways to record their child’s medicines and with additional features that go beyond what the website can provide.

• ‘Phase 1’ of the app development – which resulted in our prototype app – was completed thanks to funding from Comic Relief and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation ‘Tech For Good’ programme.
• This prototype app was developed with input from the three Medicines for Children project partners, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), the Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacy Group (NPPG), and the children’s charity WellChild, working with Manchester-based social tech agency, Reason Digital.
• WellChild families have worked alongside us at every stage of the process to provide priceless insights into how they manage their routines and medicines at home while caring for children with complex health conditions.
• During the development process over 200 families were consulted and fed into the app – sharing their priorities, their experiences and their views of how an app could help in their daily medicines’ management routine.
• ‘Phase 2’ of the app development – which began in earnest in January 2022 following delays stemming from the pandemic – was again funded externally and has enabled us to add many more features which were requested by families and healthcare professionals after the app prototype was released.

• This latest phase of development on the app started in January 2022.
• Phase 2 focussed on building upon the earlier design of the app, to test the existing features but also to incorporate new features that families felt were missing from earlier versions that would improve the app’s functionality.

• In March 2024, the app was released for safety and functionality checks with our closed group of healthcare professional stakeholders.
• Following these checks with clinicians, the app was then tested more widely with a group of parents from the children’s chairty WellChildagain for safety check to ensure careful risk management of the new release.

• A series of webinars about the app were offered to give a ‘bitesize’ overview to child health professionals of the app development so far and to share our plans for the next phase.
• Recordings of these sessions are available to view below.

The recordings from the webinar sessions, hosted by Lucy from Reason Digital, have been broken down into smaller sections so you can quickly and easily learn more about the area you are most interested in. Please watch the videos to see what we covered in the sessions and what the plans are for the next phase of the app! (Links to YouTube)

The team behind the app

What have we achieved so far?

Ideas for additional features to explore

The plans for the next phase of development

Webinars for parents, carers and other interested family members

• A series of webinars for parents and carers were also held in April 2022.
• At these webinars we provided an overview of how the app has been developed so far and its key features.
• We also explored ideas for the next phase of development to see whether they will benefit parents, carers and families.
• Families were asked to share how they currently manage their child’s medicines and explore how the app could support with this in the future.
• In addition to the webinar, the team spoke to families one-to-one, to explore more in depth how families manage shared care with other family members, carers and/or medical professionals.

• We are pleased to announce that the latest phase of development on our new app – which is designed to help parents and carers to manage their children’s medicines – is now complete and the app is nearly ready for wider release.
• The app has been in development for a number of years, going through numerous rounds of user testing and many months of design, with significant involvement from parents and carers in the process. Over the last few months the app has been through rigorous testing, first by healthcare professionals and then with parents/carers to make sure it is safe and fit for purpose.
• At this point we would like to specifically thank the parents from WellChild who spent a significant amount of time trialling the app and putting all of the new features through their paces. The hours you spent doing this and the detailed feedback you have given us is hugely appreciated.
• We are now at the stage where the app is approaching wider release. If you would like to be one of the first people to use the new app on your mobile phone, please express your interest by entering your details on the following form: https://forms.office.com/e/18ArcwH5eS
• On release we are keen to assess the new ‘shared care’ function of the app in particualr. To see how the ‘primary carer’, usually mother or father, manages when using the app to link in their child’s ‘secondary carers’ – these are other people within the child’s network who care for them, such as grandparents, aunts and uncles or siblings. It is also important to see how the shared care feature will be used in reality to improve care between parents who do not live together, or with school nurses, or paid carers.

• Please email medicines.leaflets@rcpch.ac.uk for more information and to find out more about how you can get involved.