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

📈Altera Digital Health, a provider of electronic patient record (EPR) solutions, has announced a new partnership with PC PAL to enhance paediatric care within its Sunrise electronic patient record system. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust has become the first to implement advanced growth charting as part of this innovation.

💊More than 100 GP practices in Wales can now use a digital service that aims to make the prescriptions easier and safer for patients and healthcare staff. A total of 122 practices can send prescriptions electronically to the community pharmacy or dispenser of a patient’s choice. In addition, 525 pharmacies can receive prescriptions digitally. The rollout gives patients the ability to view outpatient referrals and outpatient appointment details in the NHS Wales App.

🤖A surgical team at Liverpool’s Aintree University Hospital has become the first in Europe to successfully use robotic surgery to operate on early-stage rectal cancer using a transanal da Vinci access port.  The Colorectal team performed the endoscopic microsurgery for early-stage rectal cancer in October 2025, using a £2 million da Vinci single-port robotic system, having been the first NHS team to use this surgical device last year.

🫀UK digital diagnostics company PocDoc has partnered with Romanes Pharmacy Group to increase access to cardiovascular disease screening in Scotland. Through the new partnership, residents can book an in-person screening at any of Romanes’ eight branches across the Scottish Borders and East Lothian or take a test at home after the pharmacy group agreed a deal to stock PocDoc’s Healthy Heart Check in their stores.

🏥Propel Healthtech West Yorkshire has selected 30 companies to help improve care for NHS patients across the West Yorkshire region. Fifteen startup and fifteen scaleup companies have been chosen for their potential to transform healthcare delivery, improve patient care, and boost efficiency across the NHS. Innovations include an AI companion providing 24/7 personalised mental health support and a fully remote endoscopy service allowing people to complete bowel checks at home.

📱Mobile healthcare app My Specialist Appinion (MSA) has been launched to offer patients affordable and convenient access to healthcare specialists without the lengthy waiting times or prohibitive costs of traditional routes. The platform was conceived in December 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the founding doctors, a mix of general practitioners and hospital specialists, recognised the growing crisis in UK healthcare accessibility.

❓ Did you know that?

The growing impact of AI is set to make compliance the key driver behind cloud repatriation projects, according to research by digital infrastructure provider Pulsant. The study found that digital infrastructure investment is the top priority for businesses seeking to maintain confidence in their data strategies. 

The research, carried out by Vanson Bourne, shows that 97% of respondents are confident their current organisational data strategy will remain fit for purpose for the next two years.

However, this self-assurance comes at a cost as 90% of organisations predict an increase in their technology investment over the same period. This follows 78% reporting that they have increased investment over the past two years.

Over three-quarters (78%) ranked AI in the top three changes to have the biggest impact on data strategy. Data sovereignty or residency concerns were a substantial second with more than half (55%).

Steve Fearon, chief commercial officer at Pulsant, said: “Whilst repatriation was initially based on countering the increased costs of public cloud, this current second wave is being driven by AI and concerns around sovereignty. We expect that compliance will soon become the dominant factor.

“Digital investment and enhanced compliance measures are now critical levers for organisations seeking to safeguard sensitive data, optimise performance, and control costs.”

📖 What we’re reading

A report from UK digital health company Aide Health found that patients are more likely to give sensitive health information to AI systems than to medical staff.

The report, ‘Building Patient Trust in AI’, is based on an analysis of a year-long deployment of Aide Health’s conversational AI platform across seven GP practices in Suffolk and existing studies from bodies such as Ipsos and US universities.

It found that patients reported a lower fear of disclosure and reduced impression management when interacting with AI, meaning that they were less likely to withhold or reshape information to appear in a better light.

The study also found that 48% of patients are comfortable with AI helping identify health risks using wearable devices, whereas only 35% believe it will positively affect the quality of patient care.

Meanwhile, cultural background and lived experience strongly influence trust in AI, with variations in uptake across demographic groups reflecting broader patterns of healthcare inequity and historical experience rather than differences in how AI performs.

The researchers believe that AI can overcome one of the most persistent barriers to effective healthcare: patients holding back information that is critical for diagnosis and treatment.

🚨 This week’s events

12 December, 12.30-1.30pm, Online – Allied Health Professionals and the Digital Commitments of the 10 Year Plan