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

🤝 GSK has partnered with German IT provider adesso to develop and scale Digital Reminders for Adherence of Medicines and Vaccines (DREAM), a digital service that helps patients follow treatment plans and attend vaccination appointments. Initially piloted in five markets, DREAM is now live in 23 countries, including the UK, Spain and Italy. The system sends personalised reminders and health information, with the aim of improving medication and vaccine adherence.

📷 The Friends of Conquest Hospital have donated two new Karl Storz imaging systems to the gynaecology and colorectal departments at East Sussex Healthcare NHS NHS Trust. The new stack systems include all the equipment needed to perform keyhole laparoscopic diagnostic and surgical procedures. They feature ultra-high, 4K resolution capability, providing significantly better image resolution, while 3D stereoscopic capability gives the surgeon improved spatial orientation during procedures.

🧠 A patient in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough has become the first in the area to receive specialist treatment for schizophrenia via a virtual ward. Delivered through a partnership between Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust and North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, the trial enabled the patient to receive Clozapine treatment at home rather than in hospital. Clozapine normally requires close monitoring, often involving daily visits or hospital stays. In this case, the patient was monitored remotely alongside regular contact with mental health professionals.

💬 The Patients Relations Team at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust has delivered four additional Wordskii on Wheels (WoW) pads that enable staff to access video interpreting in more than 350 languages. The WoW pads will ensure that patients in Walsall who don’t have English as their first language will experience better communication around their appointments, treatment and care. In addition, the Patient Relations Team has developed a Language Services E-Learning Module that is available to all staff.

💰 Thermology Health, a medical technology spin-out from the National Physical Laboratory, has secured private investment to become an independent company focused on diabetic foot ulcer prevention. The company is developing a thermal imaging system that uses AI to detect early signs of ulceration, with the aim of reducing amputations linked to diabetes. Usability trials are planned in the UK and US, including with the NHS, with the goal of supporting at-home monitoring for patients at risk of diabetic foot complications.

❓ Did you know?

The Medical Research Foundation has invested £1.2 million into four AI research projects aimed at improving diagnosis and treatment of heart and lung conditions, including asthma, rare respiratory diseases and childhood heart failure.

The funding will support researchers at Guy’s and St Thomas’, Great Ormond Street Hospital and Imperial College London, with each project receiving up to £300,000 over three years. 

📖 What we’re reading

The Health Foundation blog post, ‘Does the reshaping of integrated care boards signal a change in direction for the NHS?’, published on 23 May 2025, explores the implications of proposed structural changes to NHS integrated care boards (ICBs).

The blog outlines the deep budget cuts faced by ICBs following a national directive to halve their running costs by the end of 2025, with many facing a loss of core functions like digital leadership, workforce planning and primary care transformation.

Authors Phoebe Dunn and Hugh Alderwick argue these changes may weaken ICBs’ ability to act as strategic commissioners and could shift power toward large acute providers.

They also question whether the NHS’s commitment to collaboration is being diluted, warning that continued restructuring risks undermining local leadership and long-term service improvement. 

“Since the creation of the purchaser-provider split in 1991, commissioners have been on an almost constant treadmill of reform and reorganisation.

“This has undermined their ability to mature and operate effectively, resulting in loss of expertise and using up time and energy that could be spent on improving services for the populations they serve.

“Less than three years in, and with evidence suggesting that some ICBs are still dealing with the transition from their forerunners, it looks like the long line of reorganisations is set to continue,” the post says. 

🚨 Upcoming events

15 July, London – The King’s Fund Digital Health and Care Conference 2025