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

⭐ Starlight, a charity that supports therapeutic play in healthcare, has launched an Active Gaming Box in partnership with gaming accessories company STEALTH. STEALTH has committed over £27,000 worth of gaming accessories, which are being distributed to health play teams in hospitals and hospices across the UK.

💊 Remote sexual health services provider Preventx has delivered more than 5,000 HIV re-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) prescriptions through its digital service since launching in July 2024. Preventx’s digital service allows patients to access PrEP – a pill that can prevent people from acquiring HIV – remotely through online assessment, clinician consultation, blood testing, medication delivery, and SMS reminders.

🥱 Seluna claims AI software designed to help diagnose sleep apnoea in children has achieved high accuracy in an NHS trial. The Glasgow company tested its autoscoring and sleep staging software on 500 retrospective sleep studies from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s Royal Hospital for Children. Paediatric sleep apnoea affects up to 4% of children globally yet remains widely underdiagnosed, according to the company.

👶Construction firm GRAHAM has handed over the main phase of works for a new clinical building at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. The facility was built through a strategic partnership between NHS England and Crown Commercial Service and will improve surgical capacity and provide advanced clinical technologies for children and young people.

💡 Technology enabled care (TEC) company Nobi has won the International TEC Award at the TSA ITEC Awards 2026. Nobi’s AI-enabled, ceiling-mounted smart lights detect falls in real time, alert staff, and automatically illuminate when residents get out of bed, helping to prevent night-time falls. Nobi was selected for its approach to falls prevention and detection, which is now active across 17 countries.

📝Robotics AI and Druid AI have announced the launch of a multilingual virtual assistant for Clarence Medical Centre in Wales. It is designed to help patients quickly access health information and services while reducing administrative workload for staff. The AI assistant will support self-service patient registration, allowing patients to complete the official NHS patient registration form within the assistant interface.

❓ Did you know that?

Nearly a million NHS patients waited longer than recommended for scan results last year, raising concerns of a growing ‘scanxiety’ crisis across the health system, according to a report from radiology firm Hexarad. Scanxiety: Redesigning the Diagnostic Experience in the NHS warns that delays are leaving patients in prolonged uncertainty and often intensify anxiety.

The document examines the patient experience of diagnostic imaging across the NHS and draws on accounts from cancer patients, carers, and clinical staff to reveal the psychological toll of diagnostic delays.

Patients interviewed for the report described the emotional burden of waiting for scan results, with some saying they live in constant fear of bad news.

One patient told researchers: “I dread the phone ringing.”

Others described how life can begin to revolve around testing cycles. One patient who underwent 20 scans in just over two years said the experience meant that life felt like “one scan to the next.”

Some patients reported receiving scan results through digital apps without explanation, while others said they heard nothing at all for extended periods after undergoing tests.

📖 What we’re reading

Rhoswyn Walker, chief of staff and director of strategy at Health Data Research UK (HDR UK), has written about the importance of safely developing AI to build public trust in the technology.

In a blog post published on 23 March to mark the release of HDR UK’s AI strategy, Walker says there is a risk of developing tools that don’t work in the real world or exacerbate existing health inequalities.

She said: “Trust will be crucial for the responsible use of AI in health research. For AI to succeed, the public must be confident that health data is being used responsibly, securely, and in ways that deliver meaningful benefits.

“That means ensuring transparency, embedding strong ethical frameworks, and involving patients and the public in how AI systems are developed and used. We firmly believe that the public should be engaged partners.”

The strategy focuses on four key priorities – scaling AI learnings across data infrastructures, building holistic AI research signature projects, being transparent and demonstrating trustworthy AI, and aligning AI communities of practice.

🚨 Upcoming events

• 28 April 2026, Online – Understanding the NHS Management and Leadership Framework in Practice