Industry news in brief

This Digital Health News industry roundup covers expansion into England for Hospital Services Limited (HSL), an employee wellbeing award for the NHS’ #DoingOurBit digital platform and Huma and Bayer teaming up to launch an online tool to predict cardiovascular disease risks.

KareInn added to NHS Assured Supplier list

KareInn, a provider of digital care planning and care home software, has been included on NHS England’s Digital Social Care Records Assured Supplier list and will now be helping the care industry achieve its digital targets.

A Department of Health and Social Care reform white paper, outlined targets for 80% of CQC registered providers to move to a digital social care record solution by March 2024. Care homes are able to apply for government grants via their local ICS using a supplier from the Assured Supplier list.

The list clarifies trusted NHS-assured solutions that fit with the diverse and modern needs of social care providers. Inclusion on the list means that providers looking for ICS funding will be able to use it to fund KareInn licenses and onboarding support to assist with their digital transformation.

To earn its place on the list, KareInn underwent significant scrutiny by the NHS to ensure that its systems, processes and technology are credible and sustainable for the long-term.

Kate Colborne-Baber, managing director at KareInn, said: “By embracing digital technologies, a wealth of opportunities become accessible to social care organisations which have the potential to positively transform the lives of both care workers and people living in care settings.

“Digital care planning increases safety, provides better insights and is much more effective in supporting carers to deliver even better care outcomes to those living in care. We welcome the introduction of the assured supplier list, and we’re proud of our inclusion on it.”

Cera achieves over 1.5m home visits in January

Cera has surpassed its target of delivering 1 million at-home appointments in January by 50%, saving the government up to £31m in the process.

Over the course of January, the digital-first home healthcare provider carried out 1.5 million home care appointments. The last week of January saw Cera make 530,000 appointments alone to patients’ homes.

As a result, Cera has been able to save the NHS up to £1m a day in hospitalisation fees and care home costs. To do this it uses its predictive analytics platform that can help predict when patients’ may be deteriorating so that they can intervene early.

Dr Ben Maruthappu MBE, CEO and co-founder of Cera, said: “We are delighted that Cera has over-delivered on our ambitious January commitments by 50%, to provide excellent care to even more people, support the NHS during such a critical time, and save the government millions of pounds.”

He added: “When home care is paired with a technology-powered model, caring for people in their own home is around ten-fold cheaper than a patient receiving care in hospital. This is the future of healthcare and Cera will be expanding its footprint to impact and improve health outcomes for as many people as possible in the coming months.”

HSL expands into new East Midlands HQ

Hospital Services Limited (HSL) has expanded into England with the launch of its new headquarters in the East Midlands.

The Belfast and Dublin-based health tech company has invested £1.7m into the expansion with the aim of growing the company’s footprint in the UK over the coming years.

The expansion has seen HSL establish its England headquarters in Draycott with a team of 25 based in the new HQ, at an office in Bath as well as positioned remotely across the regions of the UK, including Wales.

The company’s ambitious plans include a desire to grow the team by at least 60% in the future through planned acquisitions and recruitment drives. HSL has recently appointed Steve Leatherland as regional director of operations in the UK.

Leatherland said: “These are exciting times for HSL with a growing portfolio, an expanding team, and a working environment focused on creating a culture of customer centricity.”

HSL’s chief executive Dominic Walsh added: “Working alongside public and private hospitals, teaching hospitals and colleges, HSL are delighted to share our attitude of service and support with clients across the UK.”

#DoingOurBit platform wins employee wellbeing award

A free NHS fitness platform has won a national public service award.

#DoingOurBit – a platform offering more than 60 free workouts for NHS and social care staff – has won the Institute for Continuous Improvement in Public Services (ICiPS) Employee Wellbeing Award.

The award recognises organisations that have gone above and beyond to support staff wellbeing.

Debbie Simpson, CEO of ICiPS, said: “#DoingOurBit stood out to the judges as it was a scheme with well thought through and clear outcomes.

“It had clearly been crafted around understanding employee wellbeing needs and took into account the challenge of engaging with employees, given their diverse age profiles, working patterns and places of work.”

Every workout on the platform is unique and has been externally verified to ensure the highest level of safety, integrity and quality. The platform is continuing to evolve and has recently launched a Mental Wellbeing hub and has plans for an App to launch soon.

Healistic raises £1m in funding to build a universal health platform

Health tech start-up Healistic has announced £1m in pre-seed funding to support plans for an all-in-one universal healthcare platform.

The company already offers an app for London-based users providing medicines and personal care products delivered to homes in less than 45 minutes. It is now looking to expand on this by making it available in other UK cities, and by making the move towards a full-service digital healthcare app.

It will build on its initial offering with plans for a speedy prescription delivery service, tele-health consultations with GPs and nutritionists and insurance claim management.

The expanded platform will connect healthcare and insurance providers to end users via dynamic digital solutions. It will be a scalable marketplace model with SaaS tech solutions.

Daniel Bulkin, CEO of Healistic, said: “This funding round has allowed us to introduce a product to market that will serve the digital patient at a crucial time.

“Against a backdrop of increased uncertainty within the NHS, including strikes and supply chain issues, Healistic aims to alleviate these pressures by connecting patients to the appropriate healthcare solutions through a trusted, centralised system.

“We believe that immediate healthcare should be accessible to everyone. Healistic is building a category leader in the ‘Open Healthcare’ revolution, a parallel to the ‘Open Banking’ revolution, which began in the last decade.”

Huma partners with Bayer for online educational tool

Huma Therapeutics Limited has teamed up with Bayer to develop the Bayer Aspirin Heart Risk Assessment, an online tool to determine an individual’s risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease over the next 10 years.

Huma developed the algorithm for the tool using data from the UK’s Biobank.

The predictive tool can be accessed online and users simply need to answer 15 question prompts. The results can then be shared with healthcare professionals as part of an individual’s ongoing health management.

Reese Fitzpatrick, senior vice president and global marketing head at Bayer, said: “We are excited to partner with Huma and to leverage its pioneering digital assessment tool to help people get meaningful insights on their health in an accessible and direct way.”

“We are tremendously excited to have the opportunity to scale our evidence-based digital innovations to advance personalised health tools like the Bayer Aspirin Risk Assessment for populations around the world,” added Dan Vahdat, CEO and founder of Huma.

“We see ourselves as part of a global movement to bring digital technology to healthcare and research and improve health outcomes for people everywhere.”