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

💊 Pharmacy2U customers are now able to check the availability of their prescribed medications with its new medicine stock checker tool. The online tool is intended to save patients the hours of frustration involved in medicine delays and wasted time on the phone or visiting pharmacies.

👷‍♂️ Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust has teamed up with Henry Boot Construction to build the National Centre for Child Health Technology. The centre – located at the Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park – will be equipped with state-of-the-art technology and be ready to help deliver on the government’s 10-year plan to improve patient outcomes.

🤝 Health Innovation West Midlands and Birmingham City University (BCU) have signed an agreement to strengthen collaboration in health and care research, innovation and education. Under the five-year Memorandum of Understanding, the two organisations will design and deliver collaborative research and innovation projects, explore knowledge transfer partnerships and support initiatives across BCU.

🏆 Qure.ai has been named on TIME’s 2025 TIME100 Most Influential Companies list. The health tech company was featured in the ‘pioneer’ category and was noted for its work in advancing diagnostic equity through the use of AI tools.

📂 The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust, the UK’s only standalone specialist neurosciences trust, has successfully digitised 95% of its patient records since it started working with Apogee Corporation in January 2024. Apogee’s secure document scanning and data capture services have helped the trust to clear a 5,000-patient referral backlog, freed up staff’s time and moved closer to its ‘paper light’ goal.

❓Did you know?

New research indicates the UK economy could unlock an estimated £61.94bn annually if the current data skills gap is addressed.

The second annual Multiverse Skills Intelligence Report, based on skills data from over 14,500 employees across 16 industries, suggests the expansion of artificial intelligence has intensified existing data skill shortages.

The report details that knowledge economy workers are currently losing 27 working days per year due to ineffective data handling. This translates to 4.7 hours of lost productivity each week. The analysis highlights that over half of workers (54%) encounter challenges in making data analysis efficient, and nearly half lack skills in data visualisation (49%) and using data to convey information (48%).

While workers estimate they could increase their efficiency by 38% if equipped with AI skills, only 23% of employees currently use generative AI tools in their roles. And only two in five workers are confident that they have the skills needed to identify where AI could add business value.

Healthcare was one of the sectors highlighted as being most impacted by this data skills gap. Workers in the sector are spending 41.2% of their time working with data inefficiently and in the process losing 35 days of productivity.

Despite these findings, 91% of employees express a desire to improve their AI skills, indicating a willingness within the workforce to adapt to evolving technological demands.

📖 What we’re reading

A report from Granicus, ‘Next-Generation Public Services: Bringing Everyone on the Digital Transformation Journey‘, offers insights into the UK public sector’s digital evolution, drawing from more than 600 professionals, including those in the NHS.

The whitepaper explores the current state of digital transformation and identifies key obstacles to progress.

It found that fewer than half of NHS staff who were polled (49%) agreed that efforts to integrate new technology into existing systems had been successful. Additionally, 58% of respondents said they have the correct digital tools in place but that they could be used more effectively to boost outcomes.

NHS respondents were less happy than other respondents when asked about their organisation’s digital services overall. Just 31% of NHS workers said they were happy with them, with 33% expressing dissatisfaction. In contrast, the overall figures found 46% were happy and 16% were dissatisfied.

Looking ahead, 39% of all professionals identify AI and data analytics as the primary focus for digital transformation over the next three years.

Despite recent cyberattacks on the NHS, just 13% of NHS respondents stated cybersecurity was a technology priority to improve digital services. Instead, more focus was given to mobile technology (28%) and collaboration tools (26%) for NHS workers.

🚨Upcoming events

31 July, online event – NHS Digital Health 2025