Researching mobile phone developments ahead of a conference in London later this month I was intrigued to find that David Robson’s latest telephonic triumph is a mobile that isn’t.

As a co-founder of the European Connected Health Campus I’ve been invited to speak at the ‘mobile phones for the senior market’ conference in London on 26^th October.  I have in mind dusting off my previous work on the ‘doubly disconnected’ – that 10% of the population who are both digitally and societally disconnected.

It’s not a very cheery topic.  The glass half-empty experts come complete with indices of multiple deprivation and the latest ethnographic social research report is focused on families in the ‘Just Coping’ category.

It is an arena in which, surely, there can be few easy answers and yet, since I’m speaking at the end of the day, the delegates will need to leave with a sense of hope, with the determination to find solutions and with imaginations that have been sufficiently stretched to inhibit reversion to normality.

So, thanks to David Robson’s inventiveness, the day will not simply be populated with mobile phones with bigger buttons and large-print instructions but will now feature mobile phones that are not intended to be mobile and, this gets better, not intended to be answered.

We are all, or should be, familiar with the challenge of demographic trends.  More than half of those born this year can reasonably expect to live beyond 100 years.  One of the few encouraging trends in the budget battles ahead is the prospect that ‘Connected Health’ technologies will ease the load of the living – and ease the tax burden on those few still working to pay for the galaxy of health and social care services that we all assume will be available for our comfortable retirements.

Keeping elderly folk happy is not always easy.  The various deprivations of receding health, the upheaval of moving home, family tensions, hospitalisations (in places not always hospitable) the confusions and discomforts, do not induce levels of happiness and confidence sufficient to inspire those for whom we care to take on new ideas.

In many ways it is a comfort that the familiar chunky old phone can be detached from its umbilical cord and behave just like a mobile phone even if it is not intending to travel – or, by the way, be answered.  Since the speed dial facility already knows those who might be called it can also recognise those same people when they are calling, obviating the need to get up and answer the darn thing.  It simply switches straight into loudspeaker mode and allows conversation to commence.  Is it any surprise that David Robson calls it the Easy Answer phone ?

I’m sure that at the conference on the 26^th October there will be many dimensions to explore on behalf of those who are less than mobile.  A non-mobile mobile phone will certainly be one of them.

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David Brunnen is a director of the European Connected Health Campus - www.echcampus.com

See also recent editorial 'Living Beyond our Means'. and the 2007 CMA editorial 'It's no joke being doubly disconnected'.

Further details for the Burnside Easy Answer phone can be downloaded (PDF) from:  http://www.burnsidetelecom.com/docs/362082.pdf