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30 digital health companies set for Cohort 2 of Accelerator transforming London’s NHS

7 September 2017

Technologies including video-game rehabilitation, wearables for patients with chronic disease, and a ‘USB port’ for amputees, are among those selected for the second cohort of DigitalHealth.London’s Accelerator.

The programme, that aims to speed up adoption of technology in London’s NHS, relieving high pressure on services and empowering patients to manage their health, supported 31 companies on the first cohort to obtain 38 contracts with the NHS over the past 12 months.

DigitalHealth.London is on a mission to unite healthcare and new technologies, and bring it in line with other industries. A Populus Data Solutions survey of 2,000 UK adults by one of the founding partners MedCity, found that only 33% of people had booked a GP appointment online, compared with 72% who had booked a hotel stay online and 59% who had gone online to book a train ticket. The public is keen to digitise their health with 33% interested in having an implant in their body to monitor their health and 56% would be happy for their confidential records to be shared via an encrypted system to support prevention, diagnosis and treatments, for themselves and the wider population.

The chosen companies aim to build on the success of the first cohort, who have had strong uptake across the capital:

  • Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, together with its charity CW+, is trialling five digital health solutions including Medopad, a mobile device to monitor heart failure patients at home, and Physitrack, offering remote, video guidance for physiotherapy patients.
  • Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust expects to save £2.5 million each year by reducing missed appointments through DrDoctor’s appointment booking app, resulting in ‘no show’ rates falling by 40%.
  • The London Ambulance Service has adopted Perfect Ward, cutting out medicines paperwork for faster ambulance care, that are now being implemented across over 70 ambulance stations in the capital.
  • North West London Clinical Commissioning Groups are tackling diabetes through OurPath; a fitness wristband and 3G connected weighing scales to provide clients with real-time updates to help tackle type-2 diabetes, which achieved an average 5.3kg weight loss in studies.

The full list of companies supported in the 2017/18 can be found on DigitalHealth.London’s website here.

Hannah Harniess, Programme Director, DigitalHealth.London Accelerator, said: “With ever-increasing pressures on health and care services, the Accelerator aims to lead companies into the complex world of NHS procurement; speeding up adoption of innovation and ensuring that patients benefit from emerging new technology, more rapidly. We are blown away by the success of the first cohort and our NHS Navigators are keen to get started with this next set of fresh, talented entrepreneurs.”

Zoë Penn, Medical Director, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “The Accelerator has been a key component of our innovation and quality improvement portfolio this year. We have worked with our charity CW+ to secure some high quality, transformative and patient-centric digital health projects, engaging with over 45 staff across both our hospitals. I shall be looking forward to a second even more successful year.”

DigitalHealth.London worked with over 100 senior NHS, commercial and technical experts to assess 127 companies’ business credibility and the likely benefit their innovations could deliver at a pan-London level.