justviziting.com is a free and secure online service developed by Paul Smith and Jeff Cummings to help the family and friends of those in hospital to get in touch and keep in touch.
 
Paul runs the well-known Three Tuns public house in Gateshead where his friend Jeff and Jeff’s father, Albert, were regulars every Tuesday night for their weekly pint together.

At the beginning of 2006 Albert was diagnosed with a serious illness. He was told that the only cure was major surgery. 

No-one knew about Albert’s illness until he went into the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle for his operation. After that, friends at the Three Tuns were constantly asking Paul for news on Albert’s progress. On one particular occasion a customer asked Paul to keep him posted and this led to Paul having the idea of posting a daily update on the pub’s own website.
 
Paul said “I was about to update our website with the latest bands I’d booked and I just thought why not put a little bulletin on the site with the news I got from Jeff about how his Dad was getting on. Then anybody who was interested could keep in touch”.

When Paul originally told Jeff about his idea he was immediately taken with it. “When my Dad was in hospital I was the one who had the job of keeping everyone else, other family and friends, up to date with news of how things were going. I would drop my Mum at home after visiting, make sure she was okay and then start to make the nightly round of phone calls when I got in. Sometimes I couldn’t get everyone on the night so I would try to catch them the next morning. It was great that everyone was so concerned and caring but, to be honest, there were times when sitting phoning people at the end of a long day was the last thing I felt like doing. The thought of being able to just put a short update on a website where most of the people I was calling could visit whenever they wanted to catch up was really appealing”.  

One of the major concerns initially for Paul and Jeff was how to make information about individual patients confidential and secure and not openly available to just anyone who may be surfing the net. To get around this problem they developed the notion of the online visiting room. With this system, a relative or friend of the patient (or even the patient themselves if they are well enough) can quickly and easily create their very own visiting room on the justviziting.com site and only people who are invited can enter that room.

As well as catching up with the latest news, visitors can also post their own messages in the room as well as contact each other directly. The messages sent to the room can be printed off to take in for the patient at the next visit, helping to lift their spirits and giving something to talk about.

With running the pub Paul often finds himself in the position of knowing someone is in hospital, wanting to let them know he’s thinking of them but not wanting to be intrusive. As he says, “I often think about sending a card or something but, I’m sorry to say, don’t usually get around to it for whatever reason. With justviziting.com it would be so easy to leave a message saying ‘hope you’re feeling better, there’s one in the pump for you when you get back’.”

As the idea began to grow, the many other benefits of such a service began to become clearer and were incorporated into the justviziting.com site. Apart from being a free service, its convenience and accessibility were very evident. 

Once the online room is opened people can visit at any time of the night or day, every day of the year whenever they have the time. And with the internet, distance is no problem. This would have been especially useful when Jeff’s brother had to return to London after Albert’s operation and for keeping friends in New Zealand informed. The feeling of community within any room will help friends and family who cannot be there in person to feel much more actively involved.

It is also hoped that hospital staff, especially nurses, will see a benefit from the reduction in telephone calls wards enquiring about their patients’ progress. 

In addition to the messaging and noticeboard service, rooms contain specific information on visiting times for that patient as well as general advice on hospital visiting, from tips on how to get the most benefit from visiting to helping hospital staff with infection control. It also has a maternity section.

The whole point of justviziting.com, according to the founders, is to make it easier for families and friends of loved ones in hospital to get in touch with one another and keep up to date with their loved one’s situation. They believe that many people will find this a valuable source of support during what are often very stressful times.

The site has already attracted attention from local media with Paul and Jeff being interviewed for BBC Radio Newcastle and Century Radio as well as articles appearing in the local press.

However, it is with the help of hospital radio that they hope to reach patients and their families and friends to let them know about justviziting.com. 

Radio Tyneside has been a keen supporter from the start. Dave Nicholson (Station Director and current HBA VP) told the Northern Echo on 4th January:
“This is a terrific idea and I could immediately see the benefits for hospital listeners. With restricted numbers of visitors at beds, it’s a dilemma faced by many on how to reach loved ones with news on patients. 
Equally, hospital staff need to set aside time to answer queries on the phone.
This new website will help address both of these problems and it’s great news that, as a free service, it’s open to absolutely everyone.”

Tony Swinhoe, North Regional Representative and staunch supporter, included justviziting.com as an agenda item for the regional meeting in January. From that John Williamson of Kendal Hospital Radio contacted the boys at justviziting and after getting together decided that they were the ideal sponsors for the ‘Get Well Soon’ card KHR send to all patients.

As Jeff says, “justviziting.com is basically the two of us, Paul and I. We’re trying to build partnerships with the right people and organisations to spread the word about justviziting so that people have the opportunity to benefit from the service. Ideally, we’ll attract some corporate sponsorship which will be ploughed back in to help our partners to help us raise awareness. We hope more hospital radio stations will want to come on board.”

Any HBA station wanting to find out more about justviziting.com and possible partnership arrangements should email Jeff at jeff@justviziting.com or use the ‘contact us’ form on the website.