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

✋NHS England has launched a centralised platform to help NHS volunteers find the right opportunity. The platform, currently in beta testing mode, directly supports the government’s 10 year health plan, and brings volunteering opportunities to a single, integrated platform.

💡Twelve of the world’s brightest minds in AI, pharma and neuroscience have been announced as judges for the Longitude Prize on ALS – a five-year, £7.5m international challenge to transform drug discover for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Five of the judges come from UK organisations including Professor Ammar Al-Chalabi, professor of neurology and complex disease genetics at King’s College London.

🗓️Hummingbirds Medical has launched BookYourGP, a digital platform helping to transform patient safety and recall systems across GP services. The platform allows GP practices to organise, coordinate, automate and monitor all reviews in one place, and is compliant with NHS DCB0129 safety standards.

🔎Silicon Practice has launched a free digital maturity assessment NHS tool. The tool is designed to help GP practices, primary care networks, integrated care boards, hospital trusts and community health teams understand their current digital capabilities, allowing them to take actionable measures to improve.

🤝Praesto Consulting has acquired BrightFrog, helping to accelerate the tech firm’s global growth. BrightFrog’s expertise in healthcare transformation will be strengthened by Praesto’s strengths in data strategy and enterprise application consulting. The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

❓Did you know?

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has increased its IT spending significantly, spending over £3.6 million on laptops, mobiles and iPads in the past three years, according to information provided in response to a Freedom of Information by the Parliament think tank.

For the 2022-2023 period, the DHSC invested £530,443. The figure for 2023-2024 was £2,849,015 and was £248,029.25 for 2024-2025.

The increased spending was in support of the organisation’s ongoing remote working drive, with the bulk of the money spent on equipping staff across the health and social care system with laptops, at a cost of £3.1m over the three years.

📖 What we’re reading

The World Health Organization (WHO) published a policy brief, on 1 September 2025, outlining key actions to accelerate the adoption of digital health solutions worldwide.

The guidance highlights practical steps governments, health systems and technology developers can take to overcome barriers and scale digital tools effectively.

According to the ‘Accelerating the uptake of digital solutions by the health and care workforce in the WHO European Region’ report, efforts should focus on strengthening leadership and governance, ensuring digital health solutions are integrated into national health strategies.

The WHO underscores the importance of building digital literacy among health workers and patients to facilitate uptake and effective use of tools such as telemedicine, mobile health apps and electronic health records.

It also calls for digital health solutions to be designed with inclusivity in mind, addressing the needs of vulnerable populations to reduce health disparities.

🚨Upcoming events

29 October 2025, Birmingham – Shared Care Record Summit