Rewired 2021: Peppy Health crowned winner of Pitchfest

Peppy Health has been crowned the winner of Digital Health Rewired Pitchfest 2021.

Peppy Health is an app that connects people going through challenging health stages, including menopause, fertility and parenthood.

Upon winning the competition, founder Mridula Pore, said: “I am delighted, I don’t know what to say. It’s huge because we really want to look at serving the need of organisations and we know that the NHS is under huge pressures and we want to be part of helping that.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to have the chance to work with CW+… it’s also my local patch so it really means a lot to me personally as well.”

The secure mobile app provides access to chats, webinars, vetted resources and video or phone consultations. It’s aim is to support users while decreasing pressure on health services.

In a menopause pilot with Santander, some 75% of participants felt less bothered by symptoms, while another NHS study found Peppy Baby led to a 48% drop in participants at risk of possible depression or anxiety, with higher-than-average feedback for BAME parents, according to the founders.

Peppy Health was launched in 2018 and currently works with Santander, SAP, BNP Paribas, Aviva and Wickes but plans to expand more widely in the health and care sector.

As winner of the Pitchfest competition, Peppy Health will be offered the opportunity to have their innovation tested and scaled at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust through the CW Innovation Programme – a collaboration between the trust and its charity CW+.

For the second year in a row, the CW Innovation programme has offered winners a real-world test bed in whichever care setting their concept or start-up is based.

Chris Chaney, chief executive of CW+, who announced the winner during the virtual PitchFest final, said: “We are delighted to again be providing a real-world test bed for this year’s Pitchfest winner.

“Since last year’s Pitchfest in March 2020, we’ve witnessed unprecedented advances in clinical innovation in response to the greatest healthcare challenge of our generation. As a sector we have innovated at pace and introduced a range of new solutions that are fundamentally changing the way our hospitals and health systems work and interact with the communities we serve.

“We are looking forward to working with Peppy Health at Chelsea and Westminster over the coming year and hopefully supporting the wider dissemination of this new and entrepreneurial solution across the NHS network.”

Peppy Health beat more than 120 Pitchfest entries to take home the top prize. The entries were whittled down to the final 16 before Rewired, with the finalists battling out for a place in the top four in daily heats during Rewired.

The final ran during the lunch hour on the final day of Digital Health Rewired 2021. It was hosted by Digital Health editor-in-chief Jon Hoeksma, who was joined by seven judges who quizzed each start-up about their innovation and what sets it apart from others on the market.

The other finalists were Concentric Health, a digital consent and shared decision-making web application; MediShout, an app that digitises operational processes to save time; and Tekihealth Solutions, a remote diagnostic solution that helps provide clinicians offer immediate medical intervention.

Pitchfest 2021 was run in partnership with Digitalhealth.London and CW+, the charitable arm of Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust.

Applications for the 2021 edition of Pitchfest opened in November 2020 with a panel of judges given the hard task of choosing the final 16.

The judging panel consisted of:

• Jon Hoeksma CEO of Digital Health
• Chris Chaney, CEO of CW+
• Jenny Thomas, programme director at DigitalHealth.London
• Emma Harvey, head of Innovation Lab at NHSX
• Richard Corbridge, CIO at Boots
• Stephen Watkins, managing Director at Boots, Ireland
• Megan Morys-Carter, programme Director at The Hill
• Chris Sawyer, innovation lead for digital health at Innovate UK