Grow Digital Health Midlands announces first accelerator cohort

Nine “high-potential” digital health companies have been selected to participate in a Midlands-focused accelerator programme.

Grow Digital Health Midlands launched in February 2025, replacing what was formerly known as the East Midlands Digital Health Accelerator.

Delivered by Health Innovation East Midlands and Health Innovation West Midlands, the programme invites participants to propose digital solutions that address key local and national care challenges.

Tim Robinson, commercial director at Health Innovation East Midlands, said: “We’re proud to welcome the nine exciting innovators to our Grow Digital Health Midlands programme.

“This programme has been shaped by input from NHS and care leaders across the Midlands and is aligned with national priorities, including the government’s three shifts.

“It was paramount that the companies demonstrated this as part of their application, demonstrating relevance and readiness, and the nine selected companies did exactly that.”

The 2025 cohort will receive 1:1 business coaching and access to subject matter experts to help with product development, as well as the opportunity to showcase their technology to decision-makers and influencers within the NHS and wider care system.

The companies selected for the Grow Digital Health Midlands 2025 programme are:

• Appthealth – a digital health platform that automates care coordination for people living with multiple long term conditions.
• Hope for the Community – The Hope Programme provides digital self-management for people with long-term conditions and carers.
• AirEmail – a ​ digital tool that enhances healthcare communications by supporting email management for professionals.
• Kaenect – a clinical platform providing AI-powered, Booking and Referral Standard (BaRS)-compliant referral automation, consultation management and patient engagement tools.
• Surgfit – a remote patient assessment system for pre-operative surgical assessment, designed to improve risk stratification and clinical decision making.
• Heidi Health – an ambient AI tool enabling automatic medical transcription, supporting clinician productivity by reducing administrative tasks.
• Suvera – provides virtual clinics to support primary care outcomes for patients living with long term conditions.
• ExpertCare – a clinical decision support tool that automates the collection of personalised information for hypertensive patients.
• Note Dr – an AI-powered clinical documentation tool that listens to consultations and automatically generates medical notes, letters and reports in real time. 

The Midlands represents the largest NHS England region, encompassing 11 integrated care systems and a population of approximately 11.8 million people, according to Health Innovation East Midlands.

A focus of Grow Digital Health Midlands was to identify companies with solutions that enhance NHS productivity and communication and can reduce demand for hospital-based care.

This was shaped through engagement with local health and care leaders and aligned with national priorities outlined in Lord Darzi’s September 2024 review of the NHS in England.

Local NHS representatives played an active role in selecting candidates to ensure that chosen solutions aligned with regional priorities and had the highest potential for adoption.

“We’re excited to support their innovator journeys, their growth and bringing change to our health and care systems,” Robinson said.