Digital Health Coffee Time Briefing ☕

  • 4 February 2025
Digital Health Coffee Time Briefing ☕

Your morning summary of digital health news, information and events to know about if you want to be “in the know”.

👇 News

🚀 Leeds Teaching Hospitals’ Innovation Pop Up is collaborating with Enrich Digital Technologies to pilot an app to support children with epilepsy. EnrichMyCare is designed to help parents, teachers and carers keep track of a child’s care across different health and social care providers. Leeds Teaching Hospitals will pilot the app with a cohort of families with children diagnosed with epilepsy, with a view to extend this based on its success.

⏰ NHS Black Country Integrated Care Board has saved the equivalent of 122,000 hours annually through the use of its shared care record. One Health and Care, which went live in June 2022 and is provided by Graphnet, is reported to have improved how Walsall’s Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub accesses and processes GP data. Graphnet said the majority of respondents save up to 12 hours per week, with some reporting savings of up to 72 hours.

🏆 Living Well Partnership has been selected as the winner of the Bridge Builder Award at the second annual Pocketalk Impact Awards. The Southampton GP partnership was crowned winner for its NIHR research on AI-powered language interpretation in primary care, which it conducted using Pocketalk’s handheld translation device in partnership with healthtech consultancy SCALE Innovation.

💰 The University of Liverpool has received £10 million in funding for its new Civic HealthTech Innovation Zone (CHI-Zone). The project is part of the Liverpool City Region Life Sciences Innovation Zone programme, which is expected to attract up to £800m in investment and create 8,000 new, skilled jobs. The hub will offer a care technology testbed while supporting R&D in innovations involving AI and data. CHI-Zone is expected to create more than 360 jobs and support training for “at least” 1,140 people. 

⚡Life sciences infrastructure and investment firm Pioneer Group has partnered with Innovate UK, The Medical Research Council and AstraZeneca to deliver the AI in Health Accelerator 2024/25 Programme. The programme aims to provide a platform and ecosystem to support UK life sciences startups in bringing their AI technologies to market. It will offer commercial and technical support, as well as access to grant funding.

Did you know?

King’s College London has launched a platform designed to improve access to mental health research resources. 

Developed by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience with support from Wellcome and MQ Mental Health Research, the Atlas of Longitudinal Datasets brings together over 1,600 datasets from 186 countries, representing more than one billion participants.

Available to access for free, it is hoped the tool will enhance understanding of mental health conditions and support evidence-based policymaking.

📖 What we’re reading

A report published January 2025 by think tank Reform warns that the crisis in adult social care will worsen without quick intervention.

Innovating for Independence: A win-win for health and social care‘ finds that there is substantial evidence for where technologies like home care monitoring can reduce strain on the health and care systems, improve outcomes and save money. It notes that Medway Council in Kent has seen cost savings of over £1.25m in just one year through its use of Lilli’s in-home lifestyle monitoring technology, but says poor visibility of what is working across other councils, as well as “inadequate and piecemeal funding”, are holding back widespread adoption across the UK.

The report highlights seven quick-win actions ahead of the Casey Commission in 2028, which aims to reform adult social care. This includes development of a central repository of evidence to give social care leaders more visibility of and confidence in technology, as well as digital upskilling for care workers and more streamlined procurement processes.

“Existing innovative technologies can deliver better care and enable independent living, while simultaneously boosting capacity in both social care and the NHS – as the Government has recognised,” the report reads.

“Realising these benefits means breaking down the barriers that are preventing rapid deployment, at scale.”

🚨 Upcoming events

12 February, webinar – Ensuring data quality in AI: Practical and ethical challenges

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