Your morning summary of digital health news, information and events to know about if you want to be “in the know”.
👇 News
🔬 East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust is running a pilot study to explore whether virtual reality (VR) can relax and reduce pain for people who have had surgery. The first patient to test the headset was 71-year-old Kieran Golding, who spent six nights in hospital and used a VR headset twice a day. It is hoped that VR can also reduce anxiety and support general recovery, which other research has indicated.
🤖 Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is offering a free digital health coaching programme to eligible patients to help them prepare for surgery. Surgery Hero uses AI technology to identify patients who may be at greater risk before and after their operation. It aims to reduce the risk of complications before a procedure and accelerate a patient’s recovery. Surgery Hero also saves hospitals time and resources, allowing them to quickly and accurately select patients who may need additional support.
🦾 A four-month-old boy has become the youngest child in the world to undergo successful surgery using the Versius Surgical System. The operation was carried out at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, as part of a clinical study. Surgeons are excited about the new possibilities for paediatric surgery as its 5mm wristed instruments offer increased precision, making operations less invasive and helping to support faster recovery times.
👓 Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Penn State Health and Penn State College of Medicine in the US has delivered a fully-remote, multi-institution neurosurgical case discussion in mixed reality (MR). Working with XARlabs‘ simXAR tool, teams of neurosurgeons wearing MR headsets presented and discussed a patient case by interacting with a high-resolution 3D hologram-like image of a patient scan. They were able to interact with the model, zoom in and rotate the hologram, and or even ‘walk’ inside it to visualise its anatomy.
💷 A team at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust has been awarded almost £230,000 by the British Heart Foundation to fund an app to improve care for heart failure patients. The trust is developing a tool called Apptitrator that uses key patient data to generate personalised medication recommendations. The long-term vision is to turn it into a user-friendly smartphone app that will empower patients to manage their symptoms and receive better personalised care.
❓Did you know?
Trust in innovative technology healthcare drops significantly when AI is involved in more personal aspects of care, a survey by health technology consultancy noum has found.
A survey of 2,000 UK adults conducted in February 2025 found that 67% were happy for technology to be used more widely in healthcare if it enabled professionals to spend more time treating those who needed it most.
However, while 50% of respondents said they were comfortable with AI being used to manage appointments, only 29% trusted AI to provide basic health advice and just 15% trusted it to help with mental health support.
Martin Sandhu, managing partner at nuom, said: “The truth is, AI has a bit of a PR problem. To many, it still suggests images of impersonal robots, overly complex systems, or sci-fi hype. However, it’s not about replacing human care; it’s about enhancing it.”
📖 What we’re reading
A blog from Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at The King’s Fund explores the reforms to the health service, following government announcements that local integrated care boards must cut their running costs by 50% and NHS England will be abolished.
‘The reshaping of the NHS national bodies has only just started. How will it finish?‘ provides a brief history of NHSE, before exploring questions such as if ministers have a clear idea of what they want the remaining centre of the NHS to do, and how quickly these cuts can be safely made?
It also looks at how the reform fits with the government’s overall plan to fix the ‘broken’ NHS and improve the nation’s health?
“NHS England has a role in everything – from setting the price for a gall-bladder removal and negotiating the price for a new medicine to developing a national programme for community-diagnostic centres and setting performance standards for A&E departments.
“Unravelling all that carefully and sensibly is a task better served by a carefully wielded scalpel than a wildly swinging chainsaw,” Anandaciva writes.
🚨 Events this week
18–19 March, NEC Birmingham — Digital Health Rewired 2025