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

🤢 Private healthcare provider Bupa has added new services to its small and medium-sized enterprise health insurance offering. The benefits include dental care, GP appointments, preventive health support, enhanced mental health support, and HR advice. Bupa’s research indicates that reducing employee absence by one day per year could unlock more than £2 billion in economic value for UK businesses.

🏆 Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust won an accolade at the Health Service Journal Digital Awards 2026. Working in partnership, the two trusts were awarded ‘Outstanding Achievement in EPR Implementation and Optimisation’, recognising the rollout of the first phase of a new electronic patient record system and its impact on improving patient care and operational effectiveness.

👵 A new health app designed to help people understand and manage physical ageing has launched in the UK. Developed by ADL Smartcare, the LifeCurve app translates more than 30 years of research into a digital tool that helps people identify early signs of decline, such as difficulties climbing stairs, cutting toenails or getting on and off the toilet, and take action to maintain independence and wellbeing for longer.

🌍 Kara Connect has landed an agreement worth €2.7m (£2.33m) to roll out an employee‑led health and wellbeing service across 31 EU agencies, including the European Investment Bank, European Banking Authority, and European Defence Agency. The agencies’ 20,000 staff and their eligible dependents will now have access to human therapists online, with no triage barrier, through Kara Connect.

🚬 Digital smoking cessation app Smoke Free has announced a strategic partnership with Nicotinell in Germany, combining approved nicotine replacement therapy with evidence-based behavioural support. The partnership aligns Nicotinell’s products with Smoke Free’s cessation programme, enabling eligible users to access both behavioural support and treatment in tandem through statutory health insurance in Germany.

❓ Did you know that?

A 92-year-old woman from North Yorkshire has become the first patient in the UK to receive electrochemotherapy for a liver tumour using robotic needle guidance.

Brenda Iveson was told that surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy were not suitable due to the size and location of her tumour, as well as her frailty. But thanks to a specialist team at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, she was offered a new, minimally invasive procedure that has already reduced her tumour by around 80%.

The treatment combines a small dose of chemotherapy with targeted electrical pulses to allow the drug to enter cancer cells more effectively.

Clinicians used robotic needle guidance to precisely place needles around Brenda’s tumour. The trust claims the technology helps improve accuracy, particularly for tumours in complex or hard-to-reach areas.

📖 What we’re reading

A project to establish a research database for future clinical studies by gathering smartphone and wearable device data from up to 10,000 UK participants has been launched by the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University.

In the UK over 90% of people use a smartphone and 40% use a wearable device such as a Fitbit, Apple watch or Garmin smartwatch. However, despite the high rates of use in the population, researchers have little access to useful repositories of smartphone and wearable data.

The Smart-Health Project aims to address regional health inequalities and accelerate the diagnosis and treatment of diseases by combining movement tracker data with information on lifestyle, socio-economic factors, and official NHS records.

🚨 Upcoming events

10-11 June 2026, Manchester Central – NHS ConfedExpo

16-17 July 2026, University of Nottingham – Digital Health Summer Schools