University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust has awarded a £1.5 million contract to DDM Health Ltd to deliver part of its obesity pathway innovation programme.
The procurement supports the regional BRIDGE programme, a new partnership across Birmingham and Solihull and the Black Country ICB cluster to develop an innovative, digital obesity care programme with an aim to improve access to treatment and reduce health inequalities.
Working with DDM Health, the cluster plans to establish a whole-pathway model comprising a digital access and management platform, to support patient identification, self-referral, triage and onward referral as well as hosting weight rebound reduction resources.
Amanda Risino, chief executive officer, Health Innovation West Midlands, commented on the BRIDGE programme: “The obesity pathway innovation programme represents an important step forward in delivering more proactive, personalised and accessible obesity care. This investment will accelerate the shift towards prevention, early intervention and more integrated care – helping people access the right support, at the right time, closer to home.”
In April, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust issued a preliminary market engagement notice outlining its intent to procure an ambient voice technology solution with an estimated value of £500,000. The solution sought is expected to meet a number of requirements, including generative AI capabilities to support clinical and operational documentation, ambient voice capture, speech-to-text transcription, generative AI summarisation, clinical documentation generation, and structured template outputs.
Wider trend: NHS innovation
Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust has set out plans for 2026/27 in its annual digital plan, with an “ambitious roadmap” intended to help the trust leverage digital technology as a primary enabler to achieve its wider goals. Ambitions for the next year, it says, include delivering a single trust-wide digital portfolio, optimising core clinical systems, expanding digitally enabled care, and achieving a four-to-six percent administrative time reduction in pilot areas through the adoption of AI-supported documentation.
HTN was joined for a recent HTN Now webinar by an expert panel to discuss AI in primary care, covering successes and challenges with implementing AI in primary care, governance, adoption, and other practical learnings. Katie Baker, Director UK & Ireland of Tandem Health; Mateen Ellahi, GP and member of NHSE primary care advisory group, South Stockton PCN, Elm Tree Surgery; and Paul Miller, head of IT at Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB made up our panel.
Health Innovation West of England has launched a primary care accelerator, in partnership with One Care, the GP federation for general practice in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. The programme looks to attract innovators and digital solutions that address pressures in primary care, workforce efficiency, neighbourhood working, and the management of long-term conditions and frailty. It hopes to support innovations enter the primary care market and gain insights and guidance from general practice. Through a five-day accelerator programme, innovators will be supported with a deep understanding of primary care, clinical and operational expertise, support with how to present solutions to primary care stakeholders effectively, and to understand funding and future developments in primary care.
