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 Kent College has opened its Assisted Living Technology Suites, showcasing smart technology designed to support people with conditions such as dementia. The facilities will be used to train both students and NHS employees on the use of the tech to enable carers and family members to monitor their loved ones more closely and support individuals towards greater independence. Each space also comes with a PARO Seal, a lifelike seal with interactive sensors used in dementia care to combat cognitive decline and support wellbeing.
💰 UK health tech firm Cera says it has now reached an annual income of $500 million (£374m), up from $5m (£3.7m) annualised revenues at the start of 2020. The company, which launched in 2016, said its rapid growth had been fuelled by growing demand for more sustainable, preventative models of care. Cera also said it is now delivering around 2.5m patient home visits every month, or an average of one every second.
🤝 Independent UK healthcare group Spire Healthcare has been named strategic supplier to the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care. Under the partnership, Spire will work with commissioners to explore projects for NHS patients in areas with challenging waiting times, develop and launch new community-based healthcare propositions in the self-help and prevention spaces, and invest in more innovative technologies like robotics.
🩻 New DEXA scanners will be delivered to NHS trusts this year in an effort to reduce patient journey times. The scanners, which measure bone density, help with early diagnosis of illness such as osteoporosis. 13 areas will receive the new equipment in 2025, including hospitals in West Yorkshire and North East Lincolnshire that serve some of the most under-resourced and rural communities.
🖥️ First Databank’s medicines optimisation solution, FDB AnalyseRx, has been fully integrated with the TPP SystmOne electronic health record, covering 98% of GP practices across England. AnalyseRx helps primary care teams proactively identify and action medicines optimisation opportunities across their patient population. This helps to reduce secondary care admissions and ensure that patients requiring monitoring are not missed during transitions between primary and secondary care.
❓Did you know?
TSA, the national advisory body for the technology enabled care (TEC) sector has launched a campaign to shift the focus from devices and equipment to the impact it has on people’s lives.
The ‘Everyday TEC’ campaign was prompted by a study examining what people want from TEC.
Communication in the TEC sector is dominated by imagery and language about sensors, alarms and systems rather than the difference these technologies make to the everyday lives of the 2m people it supports.
Alden’s research calls for simple messaging to help individuals, families and people working in care to better understand TEC and navigate the options.
📖 What we’re reading
The paper ‘Governing in the Age of AI: Reimagining Local Government’, published by the The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) on 7 May 2025, explores how AI could support councils in tackling England’s public health challenges.
For the report, TBI partnered with a local government to map tasks that were performed by its staff to a database of 19,000 tasks ranked according to the potential impact of AI.
The analysis showed that using AI could automate or improve at least 26% of tasks – or one million hours of work per year, which TBI said was equivalent to £30m in productivity gains per year.
Scaled across England and Wales, TBI estimates that using AI tools could create annual productivity gains for councils worth £8 billion – equivalent to £325 for every household.
It says councils could use these savings in a number of ways, such as to provide a better experience for citizens, clear long-standing backlogs for services and improve economic planning for growth.
The report calls for the establishment of a Devolved AI Service (DAIS) to support local government. DAIS would provide the vision and governance for local innovation, and build, incubate and scale local AI tools.
🚨 Upcoming events
2–7 June, London — SXSW London
