Clatterbridge Cancer Charity · 2025–2026
Using technology to extend human experiences, not replace them.
Explore how digital and immersive technology could extend patient access to therapeutic experiences and support new approaches to care without adding unnecessary complexity.
At a glance
- Client
- Clatterbridge Cancer Charity
- Challenge
- Information and support routes were shaped by how the organisation worked, not how people search.
- GoodShip* role
- Strategic consultancy, experience design, creative thinking, product development and technical direction
- GoodShip* services
- Consultancy · Creative · Digital & Tech
- Capabilities
- Product Strategy & Design · UX · Prototyping · Technical Consultancy · Research & Insight
- Sector
- Health & Life Sciences · Charity & Community
- Location
- Liverpool
- Project period
- 2025–2026
- Status
- Completed
- Relationship
- Client
- Impact themes
- Access · Product & Digital · Innovation
The challenge
The challenge
Some of the most valuable experiences within healthcare are also difficult to scale.
At Clatterbridge, live therapeutic music created meaningful moments for patients. But access depended on being in the right place at the right time.
Patients may be:
- receiving treatment
- resting
- moving between wards
- unable to attend a performance
- somewhere else in the hospital when it happens
The opportunity was not to replace the live experience with technology. It was to explore whether technology could help more people access it.
That question then opened a wider conversation about the role digital and immersive technology could play in patient experience and cancer care.
The question we were trying to answer
How can technology extend something deeply human without making the experience more complicated or less human? And where else might digital or immersive experiences help remove barriers within cancer care?
The approach
What we did
GoodShip* approached the work as a combination of strategic consultancy, creative thinking, experience design, product design, technical exploration and prototyping.
We started with the experience rather than the technology. The first area of focus was therapeutic music.
We explored the journey of:
- patients
- performers
- clinical and support staff
- content
- devices
- digital access
The goal was to understand where friction existed and where a simple digital layer could create more access.
Music Resonance
The resulting concept was a lightweight digital experience that could extend the impact of live therapeutic music beyond the physical location of a performance.
The working principle was right music, right moment, right place.
Rather than developing a complicated hospital platform, we explored a simple experience where patients could discover when a performance was happening, join a live session where appropriate, see what was coming up, replay recent performances, explore an archive of music, and browse content by mood, instrument or ensemble.
The experience was designed around the realities of hospital use: large tap targets, high contrast, simple navigation, patient mobile devices, ward tablets, bedside devices, staff stations, captions and lightweight administration.
What we made
What was created
GoodShip* developed the product thinking around both the patient experience and the operational workflow behind it.
Patient experience
- Live Now
- Upcoming Today
- Latest Additions
- Browse by Mood, Instrument or Ensemble
- Replay
- Search and filtering
- Accessible playback
Content workflow
We explored a simple process for performers and staff to capture and publish sessions without requiring a production team — approved mobile capture, external microphones, live streaming, rapid replay, archive publishing, scheduling and administration.
Governance
Healthcare technology also creates responsibilities. The concept considered consent, clinical etiquette, appropriate capture, restricted administration and data protection, and intentionally avoided storing patient information.
What was created
The project produced a clear MVP concept and delivery framework including product strategy, patient journey, UX structure, digital prototype direction, technical architecture, content workflow, administration approach, accessibility principles, governance considerations and a measurement framework.
The aim was to create enough definition to test whether the idea was useful before investing in unnecessary complexity.
The impact
What changed
The project helped turn a broad idea about extending therapeutic music into a more structured product concept that could be discussed, tested and developed.
It created greater clarity around the user experience, the minimum useful product, the content journey, technology requirements, accessibility, governance and measurement.
It also created a platform for wider conversations around digital and immersive patient experiences.
The Music Resonance work reached MVP concept and technical-scoping stage. The immersive strand remains a future innovation opportunity.
Why this mattered
Healthcare innovation can easily begin with the technology. VR. AI. Apps. Devices. Platforms.
We deliberately began somewhere else: what is the human experience we are trying to improve?
For therapeutic music, the technology only mattered if it helped someone access an experience they might otherwise have missed. That principle also shapes the wider immersive exploration.
Next chapter
What happened next
The initial work developed into broader exploration around how GoodShip* could help connect healthcare problems, creative thinking, technology and specialist partners.
The wider innovation opportunity
The Music Resonance work opened a broader conversation between Clatterbridge, GoodShip* and our wider innovation network. One of the most promising areas is an innovation concept being explored with Ark Immersive around cancer-related cognitive impairment — investigating whether immersive environments could support assessment, rehabilitation, patient engagement, cognitive exercises, data capture and personalised experiences.
The concept brings together complementary capabilities: Clatterbridge (clinical expertise, patient context and a potential test environment), Ark Immersive (immersive technology, spatial experiences and technical delivery), GoodShip* (strategy, user experience, content thinking, commercial direction and ecosystem development) and university and research partners (research design, telemetry, analytics and evaluation).
This is currently an innovation concept, not a clinically validated or deployed product. The next stage is to build the right partnership around it, and to secure the funding required to move it into structured research and development.
We are particularly interested in connecting with organisations working across healthcare innovation, immersive technology, cancer care, research, universities, innovation funding, patient experience and clinical evaluation.
Learning
What we learned
Healthcare innovation does not always need another large platform.
Sometimes the best intervention is a small layer that removes one barrier.
And sometimes the most useful role of technology is simply to help something human travel further.
Services, capabilities and impact
GoodShip* services
Capabilities
- Product Strategy & Design
- UX
- Prototyping
- Technical Consultancy
- Research & Insight
Impact themes
- Access
- Product & Digital
- Innovation
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Help us develop the next stage
We are looking for funding, research, innovation and delivery partners to help develop and test the immersive cancer-care concept with Clatterbridge and Ark Immersive — moving it from exploration into structured development and testing through discovery, prototype, evaluation, pilot, evidence and scale. Potential areas of support include innovation funding, research funding, university partnerships, clinical research, technology development, patient and clinician co-design, pilot delivery, impact evaluation and commercialisation support.
Tell us what you’re trying to change.