Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is piloting the digital wound app, Minuteful for Wound by Healthy.io, with an aim to improve care for local people across the region and follow best practice outlined in the national wound care strategy programme.
The app was introduced to Neston Care Community Team, Neston Dressing Clinic, Central Dressing Clinic and the Tissue Viability Service as part of a 12-month pilot, aiming to test the capabilities of the app in clinic and community settings, including in the homes of patients. Clinicians use the camera on a smartphone to scan a wound before the AI within the app assesses the image, detailing progress and helping “to determine if a wound is the same as before or if it is getting better”.
Speaking about how this compares to their previous processes in this area, Jenni Kirkham, CWP project manager, said: “Before, we would have to rely on clinical staff taking their own measurements of a wound by hand. They would then have to record it into the system. With this app – the measurements of wounds is standardised and the amount of admin required by staff is reduced – allowing them to spend more time providing care.”
Emphasising the safety measures in place with the app, the trust made it clear that “scan data is not stored on phones”, explaining how the image is deleted once the upload and assessment are complete. According to the trust, the app has already been through “rigorous clinician-led testing and clinical safety reviews to ensure it is appropriate for use” and is now being used by a total of 15 NHS Trusts who have noted both “care and cost improvements”.
Pilot projects across healthcare: the wider trend
The University of Exeter recently received £2.4 million in funding for their pilot project, which focuses on helping GPs detect early warning signs of cancer through blood tests. The High or Elevated Level of Platelets (HELP) Flag project uses an algorithm to apply “more personalised thresholds” to platelet counts to help assist with testing for bowel and lung cancer.
For a recent panel discussion on how digital tools are transforming community care delivery and expanding workforce capacity, Sara Lowe, CHS business and transformation clinical team lead at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust spoke about piloting Isla Health’s digital platform for wound photography within the trust. “We did a pilot in community nursing, our community hospital ward, podiatry, and lymphedema, the outcomes of which we used to put a proposal forward to have this substantively in our directorate,” Sara said. She noted that the pilot itself was “brilliant and you don’t need lots of time to roll it out, we did it over six weeks, and we got fantastic results that could be seen across the trust”.
Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust recently introduced ambient voice technology to a range of their services as part of phase one of their two phase pilot, which is said to run between July and August 2025. The trust aims to “enhance the experience of patients and staff” and give clinicians more time to interact with patients by allowing them to document patient consultations in real time.
In May, Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust began piloting the electronic prescribing and medicines administration system, MedChart to help with recording and administrating medical information, as part of their ongoing initiative to increase digital adoption.