Songbirds Music UK turn to robotics to give more people access to music support and therapeutic equal opportunities; an innovation story inspired by the Covid 19 pandemic.
Dr Ros Hawley and Mark Fisher have been working together for 24 years – starting with regeneration funded community cross-arts projects with children and young people in Hulme, Manchester. This inspired them to initiate various projects including a seasons based music programme at a children’s hospice and becoming musicians-in-residence at Seashell Trust – a learning disability and autism specialist school and college in Cheadle.
Their work at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital spanning across more than 15 years, alongside a team of musicians, Therapeutic and Specialised Play Services and hospital staff teams, delivers a bespoke and interactive music programme with children and families to improve and enhance the hospital experience. Working across all wards but particularly focusing their specialist work on children with very complex needs, disabilities and/or life limiting illnesses who are currently undergoing a journey of transition; from ward-to-ward, ward-to-home and into adult services.
When the pandemic hit, the work on wards was necessarily curtailed and Dr Ros Hawley and Mark Fisher worked hard to open channels to initiate remote access to the wards via Teams and Zoom using iPads. This proved successful with their work on Paediatric Critical Care.
They were awarded a grant from Innovate UK in 2021 to purchase an OHMNI telepresence robot to further their capability to interact remotely. The OHMNI was designed more as a conferencing tool and it rapidly occurred to them that a bespoke robot would be the solution.
Songbirds Music Ltd was born, set up specifically to concentrate on the development of the robot.
Tell us about your experience with North of England Robotics Innovation Centre (NERIC).
We were introduced to NERIC by our Innovation Advisor at Innovate UK Edge. Having the opportunity to work with the rich expertise at NERIC helped us move our idea forward; it was something we did not have in the business and made us realise that, through the collaboration, there was a crossover in music expertise and NERIC’s expertise and this pushed our thinking. It was phenomenal and amazing. We have always been interested in collaboration with the likes of artists and art forms and this felt like a natural shift to look at tech. It’s fantastic that it came to that.
How has working with the NERIC supported Songbirds Music Limited?
It all came about because of Covid. We started looking at and exploring new technologies due to having to do our therapeutic music sessions remotely. We were looking to expand and improve our service and this idea gave us a new opening and strand that we wouldn’t have thought about before. It made us think about our future vision and how the technology would exist in hospital sessions. A huge part of it came down to democratising what we do, it’s about giving more people access to music support and equal opportunities. It’s also about creating change in a healthcare setting to offer therapeutic musical opportunity to more children.
What are you doing now that you wouldn’t have done before working with NERIC?
Collaborating with NERIC helped us to realise we have a strong concept and enabled us to take the first steps to explore this further. The opportunity built our confidence and knowledge to understand how to bring it to reality. Through NERIC, we have been inspired to further develop new strands to what we do, utilising innovation and technologies that we had not previously explored within our professional practice as musicians working in hospital settings.
What would you advise other small to medium sized businesses considering robotics and automation?
Don’t give up and be persistent. If you have an idea don’t be afraid to explore it to take it forward.
Would you recommend NERIC to other people? Why?
Yes, definitely. The support received has been incredible and people being on the journey with us, helping us to push things further. The discussions we’ve had with NERIC and the University of Salford’s wider expertise have given us the confidence to do what we’ve done so far. Furthermore, the same discussion has led to introductions to new networks that we wouldn’t have otherwise been aware of, leading to new connections.
Have you had any recent successes in your business because of the support received?
Yes, we’ve managed to get some further funding which we wouldn’t have managed to get if we hadn’t started this journey and through that we have been able to sustain some of our salaries.
What were the high points of working with NERIC?
Lots of things – we had a lot of high-quality, sustained and focused support, and regular contact and communication with the team at NERIC and wider University. The energy and passion behind it was genuine support to keep us going, the expertise we had was specialist in the field.