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

🌨️ProtoFlex has launched a cloud-first digital pathway platform that supports care co-ordination across the health and social care sector. The platform aims to enable holistic and personalised care journeys, bringing together patients, clinicians and care providers while eliminating communication gaps.

⛹️‍♂️Canon Medical Systems has extended its partnership with Manchester United Football Club to deliver diagnostic imaging for a further three years. The partnership has supported the health and performance needs of the club’s men’s, women’s and academy teams for the past 12 years. Research is expected to be a key element of the extended partnership.

👩‍⚕️ The Royal College of Radiologists says that it has improved its reach and usage through the Progress Sitefinity content management system and digital experience platform, which it has been using since 2022. Reported benefits include greater efficiency and faster adoption – with new partnerships growing from one to around 10.

🏥San Juan de Dios Hospital in Seville has cut its operational costs by 35% after deploying Siemen’s Building X as its central operating system. The digital building platform includes AI-based apps and integrates energy management, security and heating, ventilation and air conditioning into a single solution.

💉PreComb has announced plans to bring functional cancer profiling into EU-wide clinical settings. The biotech business is building an automated, on-site platform to test drug response on patient-derived 3D micro tumours.

👐 British Sign Language (BSL) signers in Powys, Wales can now use the Convo app (formerly SignLive) to access a BSL interpreter to call the health service on their behalf. The service is available in all Powys Teaching Health Board hospitals and more than 80 GP surgeries, NHS dentists, opticians and pharmacies in the area.

❓Did you know?

A report from Canary Care  has highlighted the disconnect between the government’s digital ambitions for social care and the realities of the sector.

According to the report, ‘Smarter care, better outcomes: why tech adoption is stalling in UK social care’, published on 30 September 2025, 94% of UK social care procurement leaders agree that tech goals are clear, but that delivery is stalling with cost and training cited as key barriers.

In addition, 96% of respondents said that they were under pressure to deliver more with less resources.

Despite this, almost half of those surveyed said that there is the potential for between 21% and 50% of current in-person social care activity to be supported by digital tools, with 21% saying that the figure could be as high as 51% to 75%.

Ian Burgess, managing director at Canary Care, said: “I hear the same message across social care: the mandate is clear, but scaling is hard.

“Our report shows strong intent to digitise, yet cost, training and integration still hold back progress.

“To scale, we need solutions that are simple to install, trusted by families and easy to integrate into everyday workflows while easing pressure on staff and budget.”

📖 What we’re reading

A white paper by Tunley Environmental and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust highlights how AI could transform the prevention and management of pressure ulcers, creating healthcare efficiencies and improving patient outcomes.

‘Pressure Ulcer Prevention with AI: Improving Outcomes and Sustainability’, published on 13 October 2025, introduces the Pressure Ulcer Clinical Pathway Air, which was developed through the SBRI Healthcare programme.

The tool combines predictive machine learning with clinical knowledge to deliver personalised, evidence-based pathways to reduce risks and improve patient care.

In addition, the paper explores the environmental case for innovation and how such tools can contribute to sustainable healthcare practices aligned with the NHS’ Net Zero ambitions.

Dr Aaron Yeardley, science co-lead at Tunley Environmental and co-author of the paper, said, “Our PU-CPA tool uses AI algorithms on real data to recommend personalised care paths that improve healing, cut costs, and lower carbon emissions for the NHS.

“Reaching proof-of-concept is thrilling and it proves this works and sets us up to scale it across the NHS.”

🚨Upcoming events

6 November 2025, Leeds United Football Stadium –  Driving the Future of Innovation – West Yorkshire’s HealthTech Cluster