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

🫁 Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust is nearly doubling biopsy capacity in lung cancer diagnostics with a modular lung biopsy unit, powered by Siemens Healthineers technology. Developed at Wythenshawe Hospital to meet rising demand and support earlier detection across Greater Manchester, the service integrates a purpose-built imaging and recovery space with interventional biopsy facilities.

⏰ Nearly a quarter of people in England have missed an NHS appointment because they forgot or arrived too late, according to a new survey.  The NHS has launched a campaign urging people to turn on ‘push alerts’ from the NHS App so they get reminders about appointments and can rearrange any they can’t make, helping to free up millions of appointments for others.

🧬 A Google DeepMind Academic Fellowship will be hosted at the Wellcome Sanger Institute to explore the application of AI in genomics. The fellowship aims to support postdoctoral research in AI by providing opportunities to early-career researchers to develop their academic and leadership skills. Applications will open in late spring 2026 to early-career researchers who have completed a PhD in a relevant field, have AI experience, and are available to start a postdoc.

🫀 UK digital diagnostics company PocDoc has partnered with the Brooke Surgery in Hyde, Greater Manchester, to deliver a cardiovascular disease screening initiative for thousands of patients. PocDoc’s Neighbourhood Testing Bus will provide digital health checks and same-day clinical follow-ups, aiming to screen 1,000 patients.

📓 Alcidion has announced that Miya Precision Concept Detection has been registered as a class 1 medical device with the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Concept Detection is an AI-assisted feature within the Miya Noting module of Alcidion’s Miya Precision platform.

🏥 GenesisCare has announced plans to open a Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) centre in Royal Tunbridge Wells in Autumn 2026. It will bring advanced cancer treatment to patients in West Kent as part of the latest phase in GenesisCare’s continued expansion of SACT services.

❓ Did you know that?

A blog post, published by Nuffield Trust on 2 March, examines what the future of AI could look like within the social care sector, and why it might be difficult to roll out at scale.

The post, authored by Cyril Lobont, a researcher for the think tank, argues that there is a poor understanding of how, or if, different care providers are currently using AI.

Lobont writes that evidence of AI’s effectiveness is “piecemeal”, making it challenging to distinguish “genuine opportunities from PR hype”.

“Plenty of legitimate concerns exist, including around privacy, workforce replacement, and a general degrading of the human element of care.

“A coalition of key actors in the space have co-designed a pledge on the responsible use of AI, which is a step in the right direction, but more action is needed to guarantee sector-wide safe and effective use.

“Despite evidence of effectiveness often being in short supply, the expansion of the use of AI in social care feels inevitable. But certain factors make it a particularly challenging sector to roll it out at scale,” he adds.

These factors include inconsistency in skills and training, affordability, and digital infrastructure.

📖 What we’re reading

An annual healthcare threat report, published on 3 March by Netskope Threat Labs, examines the key cyber threats facing healthcare organisations and their employees between 1 December 2024 and 31 December 2025.

It found that higher healthcare staff adoption and use of generative AI (genAI) applications is increasing the risk of leaking sensitive information through prompts and documents.

Regulated data, such as patient records and medical information, is especially at risk, accounting for 89% of all data policy violations occurring in the context of genAI usage, significantly higher than the cross-industry average of 31%.

The report adds that this risk is compounded by the use of personal genAI accounts in the workplace.

“While this behaviour has dropped sharply in the past thirteen months, 43% of healthcare workers are still using personal genAI accounts at work, which security teams often can’t properly monitor for data leaks.

“In order to address this risk, healthcare organisations are pushing their staff to use company-approved genAI applications, which they continue to deploy at pace,” the report says.

It found that the proportion of workers using genAI applications managed by their organisation jumped from 18% to 67% over the last 13 months, outpacing cross-industry averages (26% to 62%).

The report is based on anonymised usage data relating to a subset of Netskope customers in the worldwide healthcare sector.

🚨 Upcoming events

• 24 and 25 March 2026, Birmingham NEC – Digital Health Rewired