Deep Dive: Discussing Neighbourhood Health with Fay Johnstone, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells and Christopher Malone, Luscii
Luscii’s flexible digital platform now underpins Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust’s acute virtual ward, enabling remote monitoring across more than 150 conditions. Matron Fay Johnstone’s team has cared for over 4,000 patients at home, delivering hospital‑level care while freeing up acute capacity. The partnership illustrates how technology can act as the coordination layer that links acute, community and primary‑care services, aligning with the NHS 10‑Year Plan’s neighbourhood‑health vision. Christopher Malone emphasizes that Luscii is not just a tool but the infrastructure that joins disparate pathways, allowing local teams to design patient‑centric models at scale.
Humber Teaching Receives NHSE Funding to Lead on Roll-Out of NHS App Functionality
Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust has secured NHS England funding to spearhead the rollout of appointment‑management functionality within the NHS App, a capability that will be extended to 11 other trusts using the SystmOne electronic patient record system. The new...
Ambient Scribe Technology Guidance for Healthcare and Information Governance Professionals Launches
NHS England has published new guidance for healthcare and information‑governance professionals on deploying ambient scribe AI technology. The guidance outlines consent (implied consent acceptable), transparency, accuracy checks, a lawful basis under GDPR, record‑retention rules, and mandatory security risk assessments. It...
Global Threat Landscape Report Shows Exploited High and Critical Severity Vulnerabilities Surged 105% as Attack Timelines Collapsed
Rapid7’s 2026 Global Threat Landscape report reveals a dramatic acceleration in cyber‑attack cycles, with exploited high‑ and critical‑severity vulnerabilities more than doubling year‑over‑year, up 105% from 71 in 2024 to 146 in 2025. The median time from vulnerability disclosure to...
£5 Million Innovate UK Funding Competition Seeks to Drive Growth of Secure and Resilient Software Supply Chains
Innovate UK has launched a £5 million competition to accelerate secure and resilient software supply chains through the government’s Software Security Code of Practice (SSCoP). Eligible projects must request between £250,000 and £750,000, begin by August 2026 and run for 12‑18 months,...
Kent and Medway Mental Health Introduces Tools to Capture Peer Support Outcomes in EPR
Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust has added three digital tools to its electronic patient record (EPR) to capture peer support outcomes, including the Hope, Agency and Opportunity (HAO) measure, a dedicated peer‑support tab, and a specific SNOMED activity...
Spotlight Pathology Secures £1.4 Million Seed Investment for AI Blood Cancer Diagnostics
Liverpool‑based Spotlight Pathology has closed a £1.4 million seed round to accelerate its AI‑driven blood cancer diagnostic platform. The round was co‑led by the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund and the Liverpool City Region Seed Fund, earmarked for product development,...
National AI Strategy Launched in Ireland
Ireland has published its first national AI strategy for health, outlining a five‑year roadmap across four strategic pillars: clinical care, operations, research and innovation, and public health. The plan emphasizes AI‑driven improvements such as shorter waiting times, personalised treatment, diagnostic...
North West London and North Central London ICBs Look to Procure £3.8m End-to-End Digital Solution
North West London and North Central London Integrated Care Boards have launched a preliminary market engagement to procure an end‑to‑end digital solution for complex care commissioning, with a budget of up to £3.8 million. The platform will replace outdated systems, improve...
New Body to Drive Transformation in Health and Care in Scotland
The Scottish Government will launch Public Services Delivery Scotland (PSD Scotland) on 1 April 2026, merging NHS Education for Scotland and NHS National Services Scotland into a single body. PSD Scotland will lead workforce planning, infrastructure, innovation and, crucially, digital transformation across...
Hesta Health Opens Early Access for Postnatal Recovery Assessment
Hesta Health has opened early access to its postnatal health‑check programme, Recovery, for women in the first six months after birth. The service combines a clinically designed online questionnaire, an at‑home blood test that measures 51 biomarkers across eight domains,...
Digital Health and Care Wales Seeks £5 Million Intelligent Audit Solution
Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) has launched a £4.9 million procurement for a National Intelligent Integrated Audit Solution to monitor user access across the NHS Wales single patient record, clinical applications and data repositories. The cloud‑based platform must ingest audit...
Suffolk and North East Essex ICB Publishes £5.2 Million Contract for GP IT
Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board has issued a £5.2 million contract to modernise GP IT systems in line with the Primary Care Digital Services Model. The three‑year agreement, starting 1 December 2026, can be extended to 2031 and requires a...
HTN Now: Exploring and Tackling the Real Pain Points Around the Use of Digital Systems
A recent HTN audience survey, presented by Aire Innovate’s Ian Dove and Fiona Costello, identified persistent pain points in NHS digital systems. Staff cite inadequate training, top‑down development, poor interoperability and extensive manual workarounds, while IT capacity backlogs stretch change...
NHS SBS Launches Communication Framework Spanning Chatbots, SMS Messaging, Mail Processing
NHS Shared Business Services (SBS) has introduced a new procurement framework that enables NHS trusts to acquire digital communication technologies such as chatbots, SMS messaging, and hybrid mail. The framework lists 25 fully‑vetted suppliers across seven distinct lots covering digital...
News in Brief: Robotic Surgery Milestone at North Bristol, AI and RPA at Midlands Partnership, AI-Assisted Echocardiography in Cheshire and...
North Bristol NHS Trust performed its 10,000th robotic-assisted surgery, underscoring a decade of minimally invasive growth across multiple specialties. Meanwhile, Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust expanded its 360° virtual tour to a full‑hospital map covering 313,585 square feet, helping...
Whitepaper: Digital PSA Surveillance: Using Remote Monitoring for Stable Cancer to Avoid Unnecessary Attendances and Optimise Clinical Capacity
Isla Health’s new whitepaper outlines how NHS trusts can digitise PSA surveillance to cut unnecessary urology follow‑ups. By automating data capture, trusts can process patients 87% faster and slash administrative work by up to 80%, freeing clinical nurse specialists for...
East Cheshire Shares Five Aims for 2026 and Beyond Following EPR Rollout
East Cheshire NHS Trust announced five strategic aims for 2026 following a smoother‑than‑expected Meditech EPR go‑live in June 2025. The plan includes a major system upgrade in March, digitising the top 50 high‑priority clinical documents, and expanding internal referral orders...
South Yorkshire ICB Launches Digital Transformation, Cyber, and Digital Workforce Strategies
South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) unveiled three coordinated strategies—digital transformation to 2027, a cyber resilience plan, and a digital workforce and skills programme. The digital roadmap emphasizes AI governance, a system‑wide AI and automation forum, and mandatory participation in...
University of Oxford Spinout Brainomix Takes Total Funding to £18.8 Million in Support of US Expansion
Oxford‑spun AI medical‑imaging firm Brainomix announced a £18.8 million total Series C raise, including a £4.8 million tranche aimed at accelerating its US rollout. The capital will fund enhancements to its Brainomix 360 Stroke platform and the e‑Lung CT‑biomarker system for pulmonary fibrosis. CEO...
Oxford University Hospitals Shares Evaluation of Ambient Voice Pilots
Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Foundation Trust completed a pilot of ambient voice technology (AVT) across inpatient and outpatient settings, testing four vendors – Accurx Scribe, Tortus, Heidi and Lyrebird. Almost 90% of clinicians reported reduced documentation time, with 88%...
InnoScot Issues Call for Early-Stage Innovations Around Patient Care, Efficiency, Workforce, and Transformation
InnoScot Health has launched a call for early‑stage innovators—including final‑year trainees, first‑year practitioners, SMEs and student entrepreneurs—to submit ideas that improve patient care, efficiency, workforce wellbeing, or enable data‑driven remote care. Successful applicants will receive a support package covering intellectual‑property...
Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Chooses EBO’s Patient Portal
Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust is rolling out EBO’s Intelligent Patient Portal (IPP) as part of its digital transformation, offering a conversational AI interface that guides patients through appointment management and care tasks. The portal is built on...
NHS Transformation Directorate Launches Best Practice and Content Guidance for Patient Messaging
The NHS Transformation Directorate has issued best‑practice and content guidance to help NHS staff decide when and how to message patients via NHS Notify, the NHS App, text, email or letters. The guidance combines clinical safety, governance and digital best...
International News in Brief: Bill Passed on Sharing of Health Information in Singapore; National EHR in Guyana, Spain to Improve...
Singapore passed a Health Information Bill requiring all licensed providers to share key patient data via a national EHR, with cybersecurity safeguards and a 2027 rollout. Guyana launched a national EHR that includes online appointments and imposes hefty fines for...
Strategic Commissioning Plan for Leicestershire and Northamptonshire ICBs Notes Digital to Transform Population Health, Neighbourhood Health, and Prevention
The Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB and Northamptonshire ICB have released a five‑year strategic commissioning plan to 2031 that places digital and data at the core of population health, neighbourhood health and prevention initiatives. A new digital and data strategy...
Case Study: University Hospitals of Northamptonshire Optimising Clinical Pathways Through Digital
University Hospitals of Northamptonshire partnered with Isla Health to digitise and re‑engineer clinical pathways across 15 specialties, eliminating manual bottlenecks. The overhaul slashed paediatric epilepsy processing from three days to ten minutes and cut pain‑management referral times from eight days...
Royal Marsden Shares Success Using Treatment Planning System for Radiotherapy Patients
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust has successfully delivered online adaptive radiotherapy (oART) using an existing Elekta linear accelerator, demonstrating that high‑precision treatment can be achieved without dedicated machines. The system adapts the radiation plan in real time, reducing safety...
