Welcome to our latest news-in-brief!
For this edition we cover the news of £20 million in funding for Patchwork Health, a growing industry advisory board, a new app to support wound care in Cambridge and Peterborough, a move to the cloud for the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, and tech to distract and calm young children undergoing MRI scans.
Two CIOs join communications agency advisory board
Industry communications specialist Highland Marketing has announced that Ian Hogan from the Northern Care Alliance and Neil Perry from Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust have joined their advisory board.
The advisory board contains industry experts from across health and care who regularly meet to debate the big issues facing the health tech community.
Ian Hogan, commented on the appointment: “Highland Marketing has found a really interesting group of people to sit on its advisory board, and I’m looking forward to hearing their views on the challenges that NHS IT is facing. We need new voices with new ideas in health tech, and I believe the advisory board is committed to finding them. When I was invited to join, it seemed like a great opportunity.”
Neil Perry added: “One of the big challenges in NHS IT is the need to balance the deployment of familiar technologies with seizing the opportunities presented by innovation, whether that’s AI, or remote monitoring using the latest wearables. I think the advisory board gets that, which makes it an interesting forum for discussing the hard reality of some aspects of health tech policy and the exciting future that could be ahead of us if we can get this right.”
The advisory board that Ian and Neil are to join includes: Jeremy Nettle (chair), formerly of Oracle and techUK; Cindy Fedell, regional chief information officer at North western Ontario Hospitals, Canada; Nicola Haywood-Alexander, CDIO for Lincolnshire Police; Andy Kinnear, former director of digital transformation at NHS South, Central and West CSU; Ravi Kumar, health tech entrepreneur and chair of ZANEC; Rizwan Malik, divisional medical director of Bolton NHS FT; James Norman, EMEA health and life science director, Pure Storage; and Anne Cooper, non executive director at Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust.
Patchwork Health raises £20 million
Workforce platform specialists Patchwork Health has raised £20 million in Series B funding.
The round was led by Perwyn, backed by Praetura Ventures and KHP Ventures, and joined by angel investors, including Monzo founder Tom Blomfield and Social Chain Co-founder Dominic McGregor.
The company was formed in 2016 by NHS medics Dr Anas Nader and Dr Jing Ouyang, with their workforce platform used across the NHS.
Co-founder and CEO, Dr Anas Nader, commented: “NHS staffing isn’t working for NHS staff; but it can be fixed with the right tools. At Patchwork, we work closely with NHS organisations to design technology-powered solutions that allow all staff to have their needs, preferences, and wellbeing put front and centre of workforce strategies.”
£1 million funding for University of Glasgow spinout
A University of Glasgow spinout which aims to create more effective methods of treating lung diseases has secured a £1m grant from Innovate UK.
The award will help the Acu-Flow team and their research partners advance the development of their nebuliser technology, which uses an innovative surface acoustic wave technique to deliver medicines into patients’ lungs.
The grant is one of 17 projects funded by the Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst programme, which provides funding for new healthcare products, technologies and processes.
Over the next two years, the Acu-Flow team, supported by partners at the University of Glasgow and the NIHR Devices for Dignity Med-tech Co-operative, will work to develop a the tool, ready to take to large-scale manufacture.
New technology helps to relax children undergoing MRI scans
The Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust has introduced visual technology with an aim to distract and calm young children undergoing MRI scans.
Installed in the trust’s MRI anaesthetic room, a large living picture displayed on an illuminated screen, shows a variety of both static and moving pictures, across eight scenes. One shows an underwater shipwreck and another shows a calming Caribbean beach.
Di Pressdee, Team Lead Radiographer, said: “The living picture is a fantastic addition to the Radiology department. It has really brightened up our MRI anaesthetic room and is a great distraction for the children when they arrive for their scan as they are often anxious. When they wake from the anaesthetic they can sometimes be upset, so it is a really useful relaxing influence in the room. It really has helped create a much more pleasant and calming environment. I’d like to thank Time is Precious for funding such a wonderful bit of technology which will have such a positive impact on the experiences of some of our youngest patients.”
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS nurses lead project to improve wound care
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) is to launch a digital wound care management solution to help people with lower limb wounds.
CPFT has partnered with North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, Healthy.io, Channel 3 Consulting, Eastern AHSN and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Adopting Innovation Hub to implement the tool. It aims to support more consistent wound assessments, accurate capture of essential wound characteristics and improved visual tracking of wounds.
Dr Patrick Williamson, who leads the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Adopting Innovation Hub hosted by CPFT, said: “Thank you to everyone who supported the application to deliver this project for our health and care system. We listened to our clinical staff who recognise the burden of managing wounds and the need to reduce unnecessary suffering.
“The technology will improve wound care record keeping and embed wound care pathways for people in the community. This software will also help us address any variations in care with more consistent wound management across the region.”
