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
📲 The National Consultant Network has taken more than 31,000 patients off waiting lists and reprioritised another 9,600 since 2020 using Consultant Connect. The telemedicine service has been used to triage over 80,000 referrals and reduces waiting lists by 39% on average. Patients that are taken off waiting lists are either sent back to their GPs with management plans or are directed to more suitable pathways.
🚑 South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SCAS) is trialling a predictive maintenance model for its vehicles to maximise the efficiency of its ambulances. Working alongside Ordnance Survey, analytics company Qlik and Differentia Consulting, SCAS is equipping each of its vehicles with telemetric trackers that provide predictive insights into when ambulances need servicing. It is hoped this will enable the trust to avoid larger, more costly breakdowns.
👕 A t-shirt that monitors a patient’s vitals after urological surgery for cancer could help people return from hospital sooner to recover at home. The device, worn for around two weeks under clothes for three-hour windows each day, enabled patients to feel safer and more reassured than a control group in a pilot study of 70 individuals. The results were presented at the European Association of Urology Congress in Madrid on 21–24 March, 2025.
🦵UK medtech company Eventum Orthopaedics has secured £3.8 million in funding to roll out its knee op device in the UK. Called QuadSense, the device provides surgeons with real-time data on the position of the kneecap, helping them to precisely cut and place the kneecap in total knee replacements. QuadSense has been used in over 300 procedures and has already gained regulatory approvals in the UK and US.
🐣 Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has launched an interactive 3D tour of the Oxford Newborn Care Unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital, allowing parents and families to virtually explore the unit before their stay. Users can navigate through all three areas that make up the Oxford Newborn Care Unit, including the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, High Dependency Unit and Low Dependency Unit. The tour was developed in partnership with the Thames Valley & Wessex Neonatal Operational Delivery Network.
❓Did you know?
A total of 4,488 individuals aged 65 and over required ambulance drop-off at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust following a fall in 2023 and 2024, according to data obtained by assistive technology company Access BDD.
Figures gathered through a Freedom of Information request found that 1,350 ambulance drop-offs took place in 2023, rising to 3,138 in 2024. The highest volume of incidents occurred in November 2024, with 318 cases, while June 2023 also recorded 11 drop-offs.
Gender-based analysis indicates that male represented a larger proportion of the total incidents, with 3,536 cases recorded compared to 2,720 involving women.
📖 What we’re reading
The McKinsey Report, Building interoperable healthcare systems: One size doesn’t fit all, published on 17 March 2025, proposes a strategic framework for countries seeking to build interoperable digital healthcare systems.
The report identifies seven core design dimensions, from governance and financing to technical architecture and user adoption, noting that there is no universal design model. Instead, it says countries must shape their own approach based on how their healthcare systems are organised, how funding and decision-making are distributed and what technical capabilities are already in place.
🚨 Upcoming events
29–30 May, London — Digital Health World Congress
