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

Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust’s new Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) has opened its doors to its first patients. Once fully operational, the facility, based at Milford Hospital, will offer an additional 11,000 MRI and 9,500 CT scans per year. This will play a vital role in helping identify illnesses like cancer and heart disease sooner, ensuring patients receive potentially life-saving care more promptly.

Digital-first home healthcare provider, Cera, is celebrating a new milestone: 75 million patient home visits delivered to date since the company launched in November 2016. The provider says that it now delivers more than 2 million healthcare visits a month.

A team of scientists and biomedical engineers developing technology to treat threatened miscarriage has secured £1 million funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) for its first clinical trial. The technology, called Callavid, is designed to improve the delivery of progesterone medication via a small, tampon-shaped device with an integrated mini-liner. Progesterone medication is recommended under NICE guidelines for women who have suffered at least one prior miscarriage and subsequently face “threatened miscarriage”.

A remote monitoring initiative designed to enhance patient care across Wales has gone live. The project, led by the SBRI Centre of Excellence in partnership with the Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust (WAST) and Welsh Government, forms part of the SBRI Innovation Programme. Powered by Luscii’s digital platform, the remote monitoring system enables WAST clinicians to track patient health data in real time, enabling earlier interventions and more efficient use of NHS resources.

The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust has delivered “life-changing” results to a patient thanks to an innovative treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF). Pulsed field ablation is a new technology that uses a non-thermal electric field energy source to targets heart tissue while avoiding damaging other structures. The patient, 76-year-old Jean Langham, said the treatment had been “a miracle” having previously been unable to stand in her kitchen or walk to the bottom of her garden.

The Royal Oldham Hospital, part of Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, has become implemented FlexLab X, a laboratory automation system capable of delivering faster turnaround times on test results. The system, designed by Inpeco and Siemens Healthineers, increases the capacity of laboratories, leading to quicker diagnosis and treatment for patients waiting for test results. It is only the second installation of the system worldwide.

Did you know?

Smartwatches could help with future alcohol interventions by giving a more accurate picture of people’s daily drinking habits, according to a study by Bristol University, published on 2 April 2025.

Thirty-two participants from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children birth cohort study wore off-the-shelf Android smartwatches running a custom app called AlcoWatch for 12 weeks.

They were prompted five times a day to record any alcoholic drinks which they had consumed in the past two hours, where they were, and who they were with.

Compared to traditional online alcohol diaries, called the Timeline Followback (TLFB) method, smartwatch users were more engaged, with average completion rates of around 80% compared to between 50%–80% for the TLFB group.

The researchers say that smartwatches could help reduce recall errors and make it easier for people to log drinking as it happens.

What we’re reading

The report ‘Preparing the NHS for the AI Era: Why Smarter Triage and Navigation Mean Better Health Care’, published by the Tony Blair Institute on 18 March 2025, explores how AI could help address systemic challenges in how patients access NHS services.

The report argues that current triage systems are fragmented and inefficient, with patients often bounced between 111, 999 and GP services due to inconsistent assessments and limited access to records. Many end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, putting avoidable strain on staff and services.

The authors suggest that AI could help by providing faster, more accurate decisions based on richer data and individual context, while freeing clinicians to focus on care.

They propose the creation of a single, “AI Navigation Assistant” that works across the NHS, which would draw from integrated records and local care options to guide patients to the most appropriate services.

It would eventually replace existing tools like NHS Pathways and could be rolled out by region, allowing local systems to adapt the tool to their needs while central government focuses on standardising infrastructure, setting procurement frameworks and ensuring safety and public trust.

Upcoming events

14–15 April, London – LBS Healthcare Club Conference 2025