Medical disclaimer

This is not a nurse-call system

The red buttons in Speak For Me speak a phrase out loud through the phone’s own speaker. They do not alert staff, page anyone, trigger an alarm at a nurses’ station, or connect to any hospital system.

If nobody is in the room, or nobody hears the phone, no one is notified. The app says so on screen when speech fails, and it says so on the button itself.

Patients must remain on the ward’s own call system at all times. Speak For Me is used alongside it, never instead of it.

This is not a medical device

The app does not diagnose, treat, monitor, or make clinical decisions. It does not record vital signs, produce clinical records, or feed data into any system of record.

It is an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) aid: it turns a tap into spoken words and displayed text, so that a person who cannot speak can be understood by someone in the room.

It can fail, and it tells you when it does

Speech depends on a voice being installed on the device and on the device being audible. A phone on silent, at zero volume, with a flat battery, or without a voice installed for the chosen language will not be heard.

The app is built to fail loudly rather than quietly: when speech does not play, the phrase is shown full-screen so it can be read from across the room, and an emergency phrase also vibrates. But a device that is switched off communicates nothing at all.

• Keep the device charged and within the patient’s reach.
• Check the sound before each patient, using the check built into caregiver settings.
• Keep a printed communication board available as a backup.

Clinical content

The built-in phrases are a starting point chosen for intubated, tracheostomy, ventilated and post-surgical patients. They are not a validated clinical instrument and are not a substitute for assessment by a speech and language therapist.

Wards should review the phrase set for their own patients and add what is missing.