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 Cumbria is to gain a new £19m Community Diagnostic Centre, with work now starting on the site in Workington town centre. The new centre will provide MRI, CT, X-ray and ultrasound scanning facilities for North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, to help improve diagnostics for patients. 

???? The National Institute for Health and Care Research has launched a new competition to designate and fund Commercial Research Delivery Centres. The Centres will receive an investment of up to £77m over seven years from April 2025 to respond to the five pillars of the UK Clinical Research Delivery Vision. 

????‍⚕️ Walsall Metropolitan Council have recently completed an evaluation which asked Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASH) nurses to share their thoughts on the One Health and Care shared care record in the Black Country. Every nurse said it is helping gather GP health information more quickly than before and enabling them to collate a broader range of health information. 

✅ An evaluation by Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex found that the use of digital pelvic health platform, MUTU System, is an effective, accessible and scalable way to address the current pelvic health care crisis. The study concluded MUTU System has positive benefits for patients and is cost-effective for the NHS. Patients saw a marked reduction in pelvic organ prolapse, urinary incontinence, and dyspareunia (painful sex).

???? UK frontline healthcare operations software provider Agilio, has announced its second acquisition in the Netherlands – adding a specialist primary care compliance solution to its portfolio. The company has acquired PraQties, founded by business administration specialist Esther Gjaltema in 2012 to provide comprehensive compliance documentation and support for GP practices.

❓ Did you know that? 

Waiting times targets of treating patients within 18 weeks have been missed every single month since the last election by two thirds of NHS trusts, new figures from the House of Commons Library have shown. 

The NHS Constitution says that patients should wait no longer than 18 weeks from GP referral to treatment and trusts are supposed to ensure that 92% of patients are seen in that time frame. But 114 trusts haven’t met this target since 2019, and 22 trusts haven’t treated patients within 18 weeks at any time since 2015.

???? What we’re listening to   

The Royal Society of Medicine Digital Health Section Podcast – Investment in Healthcare, with Dr John Lee Allen, managing partner at RYSE Asset Management.

???? This week’s events 

9 May, Birmingham – The Integrated Care Delivery Forum 2024