9. Dr. Rachael Grimaldi - co-founder of CardMedic®

Today I'm talking to Rachael Grimaldi, co-founder of the multi-award-winning CardMedic®  and one of the most inspirational movers and shakers I've ever met. CardMedic is a brilliantly simple and unique digital communication tool. Rachael is a mum of three young children, a NHS clinical entrepreneur, and an anaesthetist.  She is also a lovely warm, generous human being, always connecting and encouraging others. . And I've loved following her amazing journey since we first became aware of each other's work at the start of the pandemic. 

Rachael tweets as @CardMedic

Lemon lightbulbs from Rachael’s session 🍋🍋🍋

• Make people feel like they are the only patient you are seeing that day – make them feel special! 
• People remember how you make them feel. Build relationships and trust.
• Equality and inclusion matter! Embed them in all we do.
• Patients are often scared – recognise this and help them feel at ease
• There are so many barriers to good communication in healthcare - simple solutions (even if not perfect) really help 
• It’s all about teamwork! However amazing any individual is, you can’t do it alone!
• Use social media to build momentum
• Network with people with share values. Idea: do a group podcast with the women we have brought together in this episode. In this series?
• Personalised care - wonderful example of a man with learning disabilities who loved  trainspotting 
• Treat people like you would treat one of your own family – the Mum test!
• Social impact rather than just business goals - use technology for good … globally!
• CardMedic helps address communication barriers for so many different people!
• It’s good to share best practice!
• Imposter syndrome is all too common amongst women!
• Great solutions do not have to be complicated – CardMedic is ‘brilliantly simple’
• Networking! Use #IntentionalCoffee ☕️☕️   (Or hot chocolate!)
• Stories – not just statistics. Knowing you are making a difference
• Whose Shoes in Uganda - with Dr Alice Ladur! PhD project
• Cultural issues - let’s reach out to understand
• Personalised information (e.g. discharge letters) can have a direct effect on improving health
• Stronger together! Let’s grow these communities

#JFDI Shout-outs @whosalama @FWmaternity @SunitaS2016 @ptsafetylearn @helenh49 @safetynurse999 @thehilloxford @NHS_CEP @inclusivefruit @Fi_Contextual @emmajaneshah @UHSussex @MassChallenge @SheLovesTechOrg

Rachael featured in our 2020 advent series about good stuff in the pandemic. And so did Dr Farzana Hussain, who was our inaugural guest on this podcast series. I’d love them to link up talking about addressing health inequalities!

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I tweet as @WhoseShoes and @WildCardWS and am on Instagram as @WildCardWS.

Please recommend 'Wild Card - Whose Shoes' to others who enjoy hearing passionate people talk about their experiences of improving health care.

Chapters

• 1:24 Rachael has many hats!
• 2:17 What is important to Rachael. Equality and inclusion and good communication
• 2:50 Personalised care - making people feel special - and safe!
• 3:45 Acknowledge and do what you can to address people’s fears; build trust
• 4:39 So what is Card Medic?
• 7:46 Building momentum - using social media!
• 8:12 CardMedic helps address communication barriers for so many different people!
• 9:08 It’s all about teamwork!
• 9:47 Sharing ‘simply brilliant’ good practice during the pandemic!
• 10:30 Imposter syndrome among women!
• 11:15 Unique solution – even though it was so simple!
• 11:45 So many contributors! Shared belief!
• 12:24 Figuring out the business side - support for clinical entrepreneurs
• 13:21 Networking! Use #IntentionalCoffee ☕️☕️
• 15:10 Go with the flow! Let’s find the energy. Shared values. Group podcast!
• 16:24 Stories – not just statistics. Knowing you are making a difference
• 17:57 Personalised care - making it real
• 19:57 Social impact - tech for good … globally!
• 22:00 Whose Shoes in Uganda - with Dr Alice Ladur! PhD project
• 24:28 Cultural issues - reaching out to understand
• 26:47 Personalisation for better health
• 28:20 Being realistic about what you can do
• 29:03 Stronger together! Let’s grow these communities!

Transcript

Gill Phillips: 0:00

I'm so excited about this podcast episode. Today I'm talking to Rachael Grimaldi, the founder of CardMedic, and one of the most inspirational movers and shakers I've ever met. Rachael is also a lovely warm, generous human being, always connecting and encouraging others. She's a mum, a doctor, a clinical entrepreneur. And I've loved following her amazing journey since we first became aware of each other's work at the start of the pandemic. So welcome to Wild Card - Whose Shoes Rachael, you are indeed a Wild Card. Can you tell us a bit more about yourself? And what's important to you?

Rachael Grimaldi: 0:38

Oh, Gill, thank you so much for that introduction. That was amazing. And so sweet of you to say. Well, I mean, I think you kind of covered a little bit about my background of, you know, being a mum, I've got three very young children being a doctor, I'm in an anaesthetist as well. Currently near the end of my training, I'm . I'm at Royal Surrey, at the moment . And then I'm starting at Great Ormond Street Hospital in February, to do my advanced paediatric anaesthetics, and then I'll finally be finished. And one of my other hats is I am the Associate Medical Director for the Brighton marathon and lead the research group there and lead with the integration of ECMO, which is heart-lung bypass, but at the roadside into our advanced cardiac arrest team. And then, as you mentioned, I co founded Cardmedic last year at the start of the pandemic. So wear a few hats, but kind of what's important to me, I mean, very much on a personal level, you know, family is obviously I think, at the heart of everything, my husband and my children, you know, my parents, in laws, and kind of extended family, siblings and things are really important, and friends. And then kind of from a professional standpoint, I think, equality, I've always had a really strong sense of what feels just and what feels fair. So I think for me, equality, and inclusion is is kind of very important to me. And through the course of my clinical practice, I've always cared deeply about communicating with patients and making sure that they're receiving the best quality of care, we can give them the safest care we can give them, and that they always, I remember my mom saying, growing up that one of her doctors that she saw growing up, she said that every time she saw him, he would make her feel like she was the only person he'd seen that day. And I think I've carried that with me that that's how I wanted to practices always make people feel like they're the only patient that matters. They're the only person I've seen that they're they're the most important person. So I think, yeah, that kind of equality and inclusion has been very important to me throughout my training in my career so far.

Gill Phillips: 2:48

I think that's such a lovely thing, the only person you've seen today, you know, clearly everyone knows it's not but that feeling how you how you make people feel, is central to good care and compassionate care.

Rachael Grimaldi: 3:02

Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, when people come, it doesn't matter what the healthcare setting is, you know, I get so scared when I go to the dentist. And, you know, I've never even had a filling, but I get so scared and my dentist is so gentle. And I think it doesn't matter whether that's the GP, the dentist, the hospital, and outpatient clinic and antenatal appointment. Even if you have all the knowledge in the world, or no knowledge about that specialty, everyone comes in with certain amount of anxiety and fear around seeking, you know, health care intervention, even if it's something that is just a checkup or something you're being discharged for whatever it might be. There's always, I think, a certain amount of apprehension that people bring. And I think our job doesn't matter whether you're, what kind of health care allied health care professional you are, is to make people feel at ease. And like they can open up and trust you as well.

Gill Phillips: 3:54

So I think what you've just said then about good communications and dispelling fear and anxiety and making things as human as they can be. That is absolutely central to CardMedic, isn't it? So in terms of, you know, the PPE and the situation, the fear at the beginning of the pandemics, the unknown? Do you want to talk about Cardmedic, and where it all came from? Because it's just the most amazing story!

Rachael Grimaldi: 4:19

Oh, thank you. Well, I mean, I have to say, it's been an absolutely enormous team effort. There's from across the UK, actually and internationally. There's no way I could have done this by myself at all. But yeah, I mean, essentially, Cardmedic itself is a communication app or a communication support tool, if you like. So it's a it's a platform that helps healthcare staff communicate with patients to overcome any barriers. So that could be deafness, blindness, language barrier, learning disabilities, any range of cognitive impairments or literacy issues or illiteracy . And but basically, yeah, where it all started was I was on maternity leave. last year, it was at the very start of the pan. Well, it wasn't The pandemic hadn't started when I went away on maternity leave. But I was visiting family abroad in February. And at the start of March, it was clear that things were starting to kick off and we tried to get home. But we couldn't, our flights were cancelled seven times we ended up we were out in the States, we ended up there for nearly six months. But, but I was really desperate to help. It was I spent the first week really quite emotional about being in an anaesthetist , knowing that my skills were relevant for the frontline, knowing I tried to help in the States, but I'm not qualified. So I'm really figuring out what can I do to make a difference. And I came across an article in the news about a patient who'd been to intensive care with COVID. And like you said, that PPE created this big barrier to communication. And that patient was terrified. He was, I think, in his 30s, he had been interviewed on Sky News and BBC, I think, and had no communication issues normally, but felt really terrified because he couldn't understand healthcare staff. And I think what COVID And what PPE did was suddenly create this global crisis in communication in healthcare. And all of a sudden, people who didn't previously struggle, were really struggling to understand staff. So I thought, well, people must be writing notes on paper. And what if I put those notes on a website kind of replicated them a bit like a pre written script, because we do often say the same things to patients on the whole. And when you're explaining things, you often explain it in the same way there are, of course, times you need to adapt it. But a lots of things do follow a relatively standard script in many ways. So I thought, well, if I put them on a website, then staff could access them and show the patient the note on a screen and it would guide the interaction. So it was concept to launch in 72 hours, and my husband who's not medical, and we've been together 20 years, his background is E commerce and amongst other things are built the website. And we launched and then shared it with a few friends. And I really thought that's where it would end. But But actually, within a day, we were encouraged to join Twitter, which I was quite sceptical about because I just didn't, you know, not been on Twitter before. And I, I didn't really kind of understand, you know, what the audience was or how it worked. But I'm so pleased, I did not least of all because our paths have crossed. But actually, what happened when I joined Twitter was within those first three weeks, we ended up with 8000 users in 50 countries. And it was just organic word of mouth. And I think the feedback that we got from staff and patients and carers from across the world was that there are so many long standing barriers to good communication in healthcare, which we know about from practising all the time on the front line, but you know, language barriers, deafness, blindness, cognitive impairment, learning disabilities, illiteracy, and that these hugely impact patient experience and care. So the feedback was, please could we have CardMedic as a tool, you know, that then it kind of went from there, we've spent the last 18 months, building it, developing it working with clinicians across the UK, and incredible group of speech and language therapists and learning disability nurses who've been hugely dedicated, and supporting us convert the content, easy read, it's now a website and an app. And we've done lots of other bits and pieces along the way with it as well. So yeah, that's kind of where it came from its initial ideas.

Gill Phillips: 8:22

So I think in terms of the lemon light bulbs that are trying to build into this series, you know, working together, working, collaboration is, however amazing, any individual's, there's no way you could do that on your own, and the kind of energy that you've collected, and the networking and the collaboration and, you know, bringing your husband in, which is something that's familiar to me. So in terms of where we came together, it was very, very early in the pandemic, wasn't it, he was suddenly going from nought to 60 with cardmedic, and we were trying to develop at the time virtual Whose Shoes, so my husband who's very much got an IT background, and really come to the party with that. And at the beginning of our virtual Whose Shoes series during the pandemic, we were just trying to collect examples of good practice. Everything was so difficult, and people were scared, but hey, in the meantime, so and so's doing this, and so and so's doing that, and the scenario I built in for CardMedic was Simply brilliant. Now, I think the simplicity of it is what I saw. And I think youve said, Rachael, when we've chatted before that you couldn't believe that something like this didn't already exist, because it's such a simple, powerful idea that will clearly make a difference to so many people.

Rachael Grimaldi: 9:41

Hmm, yeah, I think that that's well that's very kind of you to say. Thank you. And I think there was definitely an element also of imposter syndrome for and I think you know that that's something that a lot of people have, in fact, I was just on a as mentioned before, she loves tech bootcamp, which has been absolutely fantastic but The session we just had, one of the quotes that came up was that one in two women have imposter syndrome, which is present a lot of the time. So I know it's really common, and I've definitely had it, you know, medical practice, especially starting out. And you know, when I started, I thought, how can this how can this not have been done before? And how could it be me that's thought of it because it is so simple. And the platform is designed to be really intuitive and really easy and really simple to use. But I think, you know, the feedback we've over the last year, we've had 50,000 people visiting the website, we've had 22,000 app downloads. And through that the kind of international media coverage we've had, and the research that we've done is that it doesn't exist in this format. There isn't anything that pulls together all of these flexible communication solutions under one roof, but it's taken a kind of a long time to go. Okay, so the idea did come from me, but like you said, it's a whole team effort, you know, and it's taken expertise from many people from the clinical forefront. We've had midwives obstetricians, audiologists, radiographers, speech language therapist, critical care nurses, learning disability nurses, other doctors, I mean, it's just and the list goes on of people that have come forward, who love the mission. And the social impact side is definitely something I'd like to touch on at some point. But but but really love the mission of reducing health inequities, and improving health literacy globally. And I think people really believe in that idea. And it's something that we massively massively care about that this is Tech for Good. And it's not just the kind of clinical side it's the figuring out the business side. You know, I went on an accelerator called The Hill run by Oxford University Hospitals, which was absolutely brilliant. And if there are any clinical entrepreneurs listening or clinicians with, you know, innovative ideas, definitely apply for The Hill. I'm also on the NHS clinical entrepreneur programme, which has been brilliant. And I think they their applications, oh they close tomorrow, I think so this might not go out quite in time. But But then, you know, they've been brilliant. And I've done a US Maths Challenge accelerator, which, which was really good and that just finished, and I'm doing other ones. She loves tech, which is the world's largest startup competition for women in technology, who's absolutely fantastic community of women all around the world who are in technology, who are all kind of we've all had really similar experiences of journeys along this route, but it is it takes a team to do this definitely.

Gill Phillips: 12:35

So I'd already seen you as a fantastic networker. Your network must be going just crazy now and I'm thinking of some of the lovely people who've helped bring us together. So Claire Cox, you know, some of those early connections. We had really fantastic people and Helen Hughes, Claire that I met through my work with the Darzi fellows and and Helen obviously at patient safety, learning, sharing these helping connectors or and sharing these innovative ideas really. And also as a contributor, I think to you mentioned midwives and obstetricians and Katie Eaves was someone that we worked with really closely in Brighton to put together our maternity Whose Shoes event in Brighton. These are people who go the extra mile

Rachael Grimaldi: 13:18

and then Flo as well.

Gill Phillips: 13:21

And Flo obviously. Yeah. So yeah, it might be worth jumping at this point. As I saw a couple of days ago on Twitter, I've had this thing called intentional coffee that we've been putting with Dr. Mary Salama, who's fantastic. In Birmingham.

Rachael Grimaldi: 13:36

She's on the clinical entrepreneur programme as well.

Gill Phillips: 13:38

Is she?. Wow.

Rachael Grimaldi: 13:39

Yes, yes. Yeah, we keep meaning to meet..

Gill Phillips: 13:43

So Mary will be delighted about this but Sunita Sharma is basically our postnatal guru for the whole#MatExp movement. You know, she's my go to person at Chelsea and Westminster hospital. And I saw just two days ago on Twitter. So we're talking about how Twitter brings us together. Sunita, I'm really delighted that she's doing some work around personalised discharge letters. And I believe that the two of you are now going to connect Now trust you Rachae. We've got to have intentional hot chocolate now.

Rachael Grimaldi: 14:15

I know exactly sorry. I don't feel very British. I don't drink tea or coffee. I just don't like the flavour, but I will have an intentional hot chocolate that's for sure

Gill Phillips: 14:24

so Sunita, again, is someone I really recommend that you connect with. And who knows. I'm hoping through this podcast in terms of linking people that at some point further down the line. We could even have a sort of three way conversation and some of these things that we just don't know how they're going to evolve. But I think the key message is to be open to not knowing what the next steps quite are, but just linking with the right people who've got those shared values and shared objectives really.

Rachael Grimaldi: 14:53

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And yeah, I was really excited when I saw you done that on Twitter and you have been such advocate for CardMedic and for me and such a support over the last year plus to nearly 18 months. So thank you so much. And I used to work clinically with Claire on intensive care when I was doing my intensive care rotations. And she's always been absolutely as you can imagine, fantastic with patients and clinically amazing. I mean, she's doing wonderful work now in patient safety as well. And Helen is such an inspiration from patient safety learning. She's just a force of nature. So yeah, I'm, you know, I love the group of women that you've brought together as well through doing all of this. I think if we could do some kind of big group podcast, that would be so exciting.

Gill Phillips: 15:35

Wouldn't that be amazing? And it would. And I was thinking perhaps going back to what you were saying before, you know, you were talking about all those statistics in terms of cardmedic and how it grew globally, and you know, how many languages and so on. But I know when when we put together that original, simply brilliant scenario for the Whose Shoes session, I think it was the one we did around inequalities and how people were disproportionately affected by the pandemic. And I've looked back at that scenario and a little extract from it. My mum does not speak good English, particularly when she's distressed or in pain. But her doctor helped her by using these simple digital flashcards to find out how to make her more comfortable. And I think one thing that we've all learned through our work is that storytelling, taking it down to that individual level about what difference it makes to somebody and to their family. Starts to put it in context, doesn't it in terms of something that might have massive, it's bit like, you know, if you hear about something terrible, like an earthquake, and you hear about big numbers affected, but then you start to hear about how it affected a certain family or people can just relate more cant they and hopefully understand more about what you're doing and why it's important.

Rachael Grimaldi: 16:49

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I mean, hearing that it's just, I think it makes all the kind of the long, long days, long nights, weekends, the 100 hour weeks, all worthwhile when you feel like you're making a difference to people. And I think, you know, far proceeding cardmedic, I think like you said, it's getting down to that granular personal level. I remember doing a night shift once being I think I was probably quite a junior register at the time. But we had a chat on intensive care about someone who had learning disabilities who was, I think in his 50s, who needed an emergency operation out of hours. And normally he had his family, his sisters with him who would support him because he had some quite severe learning disabilities. But it was three in the morning, they obviously weren't present. But I remember he needs to come to theatre and I thought this is probably going to be quite distressing for him. So he had a hospital passport with him as patients often do who come in with learning disabilities and things. So I read that and I thought what can I learn about him that he won't be able to tell me and I read that he liked watching trains come in and out of stations. So I thought this has got to be on YouTube, you know, there's gonna be someone I'm sure who films trains coming in and out of stations so I looked it up and sure enough there were and and so I set up the anaesthetic room with the help of my ODP and, and we had the lights turned off. And we had just videos coming, you know, on of trains going in and out of stations. And thankfully, he already had drips in. So we were able just to gently drift off to sleep while he was just watching videos. And it was all really calm. And I was actually inspired by one of my consultants who's very sadly no longer with us. It was the kind of the way he behaved with patients as well that really personalised care. And like you said, that's really trying to make a difference to one person at a time. That kind of inspired me. And I remember that his family when they learned about us too, because I was on night. So I didn't see his family or get to tell them but somehow the message got through to them. And they were just so grateful that we'd kind of taken the time to do that and learn that about him. But for me, it was it was just one patient coming through. But they were my patients and they were my responsibility. And it was my job to make sure that they were feeling as safe and as reassured as possible. And they weren't scared by anything going on around them. And I think carrying that through to cardmedic has been really important that kind of culture and that ethos. And then I think going back a bit more I guess to the bigger picture again is is the social impact side of what we're doing is wanting that culture to be not just helping patients and their families across the UK but globally and and that cardmedic is a kind of Tech for Good, and making a positive social impact. And so we're currently working with refugees in Kenya with the step up one foundation and Kakuma refugee camp. We've worked with some incredible refugees, paying them to do our trans some of our translation work for us. And we really want to support female entrepreneurs and healthcare entrepreneurs in developing countries when when we're in a position to financially to provide them with grants for whatever kind of businesses they they're looking to set up or pay to fund training for. community health workers for refugee camps to support humanitarian crises to subsidise cardmedics use in developing countries. So it's not just something we kind of say we genuinely we, you know, we're working with refugees now we really care deeply about that. And so whilst I'm, you know, I kind of have come at this very much as a clinician with no business background and talking about money makes me feel uncomfortable. It costs money to do this stuff, it's expensive, we've been very lucky to have two Innovate UK grants, and we're very grateful to Innovate UK, we could not have done this without them. And you know, we've since had some angel investment and things but it's hugely expensive, doing this stuff and we're working with them inclusive fruit to the sign language company to do our sign language, and etc. But, but I think part of the message that we're always keen to share is that although you know, cardmedic, is now needs to generate revenue and university hospitals, Sussex is our beacon site for that, you know, and we're working with other trusts across the UK. Although it needs to generate revenue we it's really important that people understand our culture is that we want that revenue to grow the business but to be used for kind of a Tech for Good as well to support developing countries and refugees and things as well overseas.

Gill Phillips: 21:15

And the conversation could go in two ways at this point, because this is where you know, it's the kind of thing that we get chatting and my mind going off on one and so I'm thinking two different things. I'm thinking I want you to say a little bit more about your beacon site, but I don't want to lose what I was already thinking about. I'm very, very excited Rachael that one of the podcast guests I've got coming up imminently at the moment very, very special, a little bit different perhaps from the other ones I'm doing, which is more about the podcast theme really is around quality improvement in the NHS in the UK, the health and well being in the UK and so on. Well, this podcast guest is different and it's Dr. Alice Ladur. And Alice has used Whose Shoes and I dont know if you know this, Alice has used Whose Shoes with men in Uganda to make a difference in terms of their understanding and attitudes towards why women need antenatal care why they need hospital care you know, they're not ill they haven't gotten malaria. I've learned so much about it but obviously only just dipping in and touching the surface and I met Alice and basically we agreed that she could use Whose Shoes in this way and we translated the cards into Luganda the local language and so I can't help thinking that at some point for you and Alice perhaps just have an intentional hot chocolate or in fact Alice likes coffee because she came to a Whose Shoes workshop in London when we were first planning the project, and we had a coffee together and we ended up in this lovely and this is just completely off piste now but she had a beautiful little beaded bag that apparently there are lots of in Uganda but I just admired it and she said Gill, I want you to have it and which was just so amazing. And then we came out and I can't remember whether Alice hadn't been very long in the UK at that point and it was chucking it down with rain as it so often does. And I happened to have two little compact umbrellas in my handbag just because my handbags normally such a unsorted Mary Poppins bag, and Alice had one of the umbrellas. And we did our bit of exchanging.

Rachael Grimaldi: 23:37

She sounds incredible that I mean, that's that sounds amazing - there's someone on She loves tech at the moment, a group called reach 52 they are trying to reach 52% of the world's population who don't have access to primary health care, I think they would also be a really good fit, it would be amazing to kind of get us all together and to be able to talk about these issues. I think what you've touched on there is the cultural issues as well, not necessarily issues, but you know, just people's cultures. How do people do things differently? And, you know, we know in our country, the importance of antenatal care, for example, as you know, amongst many other different types of healthcare, but culturally, if you come from a place where it's not accepted or not part of the cultural norm, then of course, morbidity and mortality for women and their babies is far, far greater, much higher. So it's really important to work with local communities to understand why their culture is the way that it is, but explain that you know, that there is associated morbidity and mortality and how can we work with that culture locally to maybe explain the importance of whilst respecting cultural practice that there might be some things that they could reframe and rethink that would improve the health and well being of their moms and babies in that country. So that sounds like a really powerful way of doing it through Whose Shoes because I think that you're getting people to kind of like the ideas come from them. I think often when people have their own ideas, they're more likely to, you know, if it's come from themselves, they're more likely to, to go with it than if they feel like someone's telling them what to do, if that makes sense.

Gill Phillips: 25:14

Well, absolutely, I think we're all like that. Again, within this series, the idea of, you know, we need to invent it here was something that came up with a podcast I did with Carol Munt, a couple of weeks ago, and you know, how to get through that in terms of well a good idea is a good idea, but people do like to own things themselves don't they . I mean, I think picking up on what you just said something like nutrition, you know, it's, it's scientifically known that certain things will be helpful, certain nutrients, and so on. So it's about education, isn't it, but like you say, respecting cultures. And I know some of the work that Alice found that the couples were going off to the market afterwards to buy healthy food together, because they understood that that was important for the pregnancy. And again, coming back to Sunita and what I was saying about is anyone I've seen from Twitter, I haven't spoken to her recently, I must catch up with Sunita but the personalised discharge letters, again, they will be picking up on things like iron or folic acid or something that that individual who's perhaps have blood loss needs to know about for their health and well being. So to us the idea of making communication easier in different languages.

Rachael Grimaldi: 26:29

And like you said, making it relevant for people because I think if it looks standardised, people are just more likely to dismiss it or this doesn't, it's not relevant to me or I'm healthy. I don't need to know these sorts of things, or whatever it might be. I think, if people have, you know, if you have that personal touch, you feel like that discharge letter is meant for you. It's telling you you've lost blood or you had preeclampsia, we need to monitor your blood pressure. I mean, obviously, we're using kind of obstetric examples, but there will be many others. I think people are far more likely to take on board and absorb the content of that letter and follow its advice, I would hope they feel like it's been tailored for them.

Gill Phillips: 27:07

And I think the example that you gave with the young man with the Trainspotting, you know that that kind of sums it up for me because it's a nonmedical example. It's tapping into humanity, some of these personal interests, and making them feel comfortable. And I think hopefully, the work that we're both doing is trying to pull in that direction of personalised care, and simple things that can make a difference.

Rachael Grimaldi: 27:34

I hope Yeah, I really hope so I feel I feel like with card medic with the best will in the world, you know, we would love to always be able to provide translators, Speech, Language Therapists, learning disability nurses signers in person, at the point of care wherever that might be for every person, but there isn't a financing, there isn't a resource for it. And so there is a huge gap in service provision. And people often rely on friends, family staff, and other kind of mechanisms to translate content, you know, for example, and that's what we want to do is, is bridge that gap and to support patients and staff like you say, be able to communicate feel like they've got that personal interaction and feel safe at the end of the day. And, you know, I hope with all the wonderful people you've spoken about, you know, everyone's these incredible collective efforts across the UK coming from all sorts of allied health care, health care professionals, charities, organisations and across the world who are working in this space to improve patient experience, quality of care, safety, improving health equity and health literacy. I just think the kind of collective power of good is hopefully, what's going to make the difference for our patients now and in the future.

Gill Phillips: 28:50

Well, I can't think of a better note to end on, on that's a an inspirational kind of, like, call out for people to keep doing what they're doing. And, you know, grow these communities and just do the best we all can really.

Rachael Grimaldi: 29:04

Yeah, definitely.

Gill Phillips: 29:06

Was there anything else, Rachael, that you were burning to say, as part of this podcast today?

Rachael Grimaldi: 29:11

I think we've covered so much ground. I'veId just thank you for your support. And I think what you're doing is absolutely incedible with Whose Shoes and with this podcast, and you are a force of nature, genuinely. I just think what you do on Twitter is, is unbelievable, what you stand for, the people that you bring together, the ideas, you've got the creativity, obviously, Mr. Whose Shoes, the wonderful, Colin in the background, as well. You know, I think it's Yeah, I think it's a massive inspiration. And I think, you know, for women as well, to see that the female leadership, you know, it's also really important, I think, the very start of my journey with cardmedic. I remember saying completely unintentionally. You know, it wasn't something I sought out at all, but just the number of women who came together to support me, you know, was unbelievable and really was really inspiring. And I still have so many women, you know, working together that for this cause and, and I think you're very much at the forefront of leading that for us in healthcare. So thank you so much.

Gill Phillips: 30:19

Well, that's that's really really kind. Rachael. What ardo I say really,, we're just doing our best, arent we? And yeah, I think the imposter syndrome. I wouldn't be surprised if it's 100%! it's you and me but we are bashing through it. Yes, we are. So thank you so much, Rachael. Keep in touch, keep doing what you're doing and we look forward to the the next steps with everything. Thank you.

Rachael Grimaldi: 30:43

Thank you so much for having me.