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

👨‍⚕️North West London Integrated Care Board (ICB) and North Central London ICB published an intent on 11 March to procure a single complex care clinical commissioning digital end-to-end solution as they become the West and North London ICB. The digital system is intended to improve efficiency and patient outcomes by replacing outdated systems as the organisations merge.

📱Amazon has added an healthcare assistant to its website and app, widening access for non-subscribers. Health AI was previously only available on the app for One Medical, the healthcare company Amazon bought for $3.9bn in 2023. The assistant can explain test results, connect patients with providers, and answer questions about medications and symptoms.

🏥The Scottish government has announced that it will establish a body to drive transformation across the health and care system and the wider public sector on 1 April 2026. Public Services Delivery Scotland will replace NHS Education for Scotland and NHS National Services Scotland, focusing on workforce planning and development, service infrastructure and innovation, and digital transformation.

💰The National Institute for Health and Care Research has awarded £2.31m to 24 projects through its ‘Invention for Innovation funding at the speed of translation’ (FAST) funding project. The money will support the development of technology-assisted workforce solutions focused on preventing a single chronic condition from progressing to multi-morbidity in community, home, and care settings.

📜The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust has extended its contract with Meditech to ensure the continuity of its core clinical information system while undergoing procurement of a new electronic patient record solution. The £2.8m contract will run from 19 March 2026 to 18 March 2028, with a possible extension to March 2030.

❓ Did you know that?

More than four in 10 adults in the UK are happy to use ChatGPT for their mental health support, according to a study led by Bournemouth University.

The study, published in AI and Society on 12 February, is based on a survey of nearly 31,000 adults in 35 countries about their use of AI large language models such as ChatGPT.

Researchers also found that 45% of people globally would trust AI models to take on the role of their doctor and three quarters of people would use an AI chat tool as a companion and a friend.

Dr Ala Yankouskaya, senior lecturer in psychology at Bournemouth University, said: “If someone is experiencing depression, they do not want to wait months for an appointment, so instead they can turn to AI.

“However, when I tested some of the tools myself, I found the language used very vague and confusing because the developers are careful not to jump into providing diagnoses. So, it is no substitute for speaking to a health professional.”

The researchers also noted that users were already familiar with NHS chatbots, which use similar AI technology, and this could be normalising their use of AI in other apps such as ChatGPT for their mental health care.

Dr Yankouskaya and the team concluded that as the prospect of AI playing a bigger role in people’s lives moves from a theoretical prospect to reality, there needs to be more awareness within societies about how generative AI tools work and their limitations.

📖 What we’re reading

A article, published in Nature on 10 March, looks into how connected medical services are redefining care in the NHS, but also exposing it to bi-directional cyber-physical threats that traverse physical, network, and cloud layers.

The authors state these vulnerabilities blur the boundary between technology and patient safety and argue that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency should elevate cybersecurity to a “clinical-safety mandate, enforcing a unified socio-technical framework with security-by-design, cross-layer risk assessment, and continuous post-market vigilance”.

The comment piece by Oliver Toparti, Kunal Rajput, Ara Darzi, and Saira Ghafur at Imperial College London, adds: “Current UK regulation does not define who is responsible, accountable, consulted, or informed (RACI) for key activities such as patching, access control, recovery, or vulnerability management once a connected medical device is deployed.

“This gap blurs the line between the product domain, which is the manufacturer’s responsibility, and the operational domain, which lies with healthcare providers.

“Addressing this requires overcoming structural barriers where regulators, like the FDA, oversee devices but lack the remit to regulate hospital networks.”

🚨 Upcoming events

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