HealthTech Hour

20 years ago, there was a scandal around dodgy hip replacements failing. The NHS had no national register for hip replacements - so Richard Armstrong and others set about building one and that is called the National Joint Registry. Scroll forward to today and it is the leading global database for implants and connecting to outcomes. The data is so comprehensive that Richard and his team are able to predict which implants will deliver the best outcomes and the best long-term ROI for any healthcare system. Richard Armstrong is Director of Registries and RWE at NEC Software Solutions and his passion is data science in health - and the impact of his passion is felt throughout the healthcare service, Richard has worked in healthcare informatics for the past decade, running national programmes associated with the collection and reporting of healthcare data. A key aspect of Richard’s work is designing and managing medical registries which analyse data on medical procedures, devices and outcomes. Richard has a pivotal role in advancing real-world evidence initiatives in healthcare, which can significantly impact treatment decisions and patient safety.

The data is clear - language barriers hurt patients, in any healthcare setting. In some settings, for example acute, maternity and others, these barriers can lead to very serious situations. Kavita Palmer is a clinician by background and Co-Founder of Word360, a multilingual and translation support platform used across the NHS. Her mission is to solve this, at scale - and the problem is vast. Think about all the communication, written, verbal, paper, electronic, across all healthcare pathways. Last year in London alone, they provided 167 different languages to NHS clinicians and patients and have the ability to offer 450+. As Britain's demographics shift, this will become ever more important to solve efficiently.

Sleep struggles? This show could be for you. Alison is one of the most successful NHS entrepreneurs, with her business Sleepstation now working with over 80% of NHS regions and over 80% of all GP surgeries have referred patients into Sleepstation. Sleepstation is a digital alternative to sleeping pills, that embeds human-led CBTi alongside technology to deliver very successful outcomes to insomnia. Alison is an inspirational leader and a brilliant founder and her story will lift you up!

Sara Roberts is a four-time HealthTech founder, strategic advisor and the founder of Well Purposed, a strategic advisory studio supporting post Series-A HealthTech and longevity companies to scale ethically and sustainably. With over 15 years’ experience operating across the UK, Africa and the Europe, she has built and scaled ventures from early traction to £10m ARR, working closely with founders, investors and executive teams navigating growth, ethics, and operational complexity. Her work is shaped by both lived founder experience and personal motivation. Following the loss of her father to a preventable illness, Sara became focused on building more human, preventative and integrity-led health systems. Through Well Purposed, she advises HealthTech leaders on sustainable growth, leadership resilience and aligning commercial success with long-term outcomes.

Dr Mark Hudson-Peacock is a Clinician turned serial entrepreneur, including being a trailblazer in the field of Pharmacogenomics - finding medicines that work better based on your individual genome. Pharmacogenomics was included in the NHS 10 Year Plan as a "big bet" to save the NHS. He is the founder/CEO of Mantara Health Ltd, responsible for launching the first commercially available Pharmacogenomics (PGx) test in the UK.

Dr Taz Aldawoud is a GP, NHS Innovation Accelerator Fellow and founding CEO of Doc Abode, a nationally recognised digital health company enabling the NHS to deliver faster, safer care closer to home. With over 20 years’ clinical experience and an MBA specialising in Strategic Healthcare Management, he combines frontline insight with a strong record in digital transformation. He spent more than a decade as Director of Clinical Innovation at West Yorkshire’s urgent care provider, where he pioneered one of the NHS’s first award-winning telehealth services. Taz is currently Chief Clinical Information Officer for the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and previously served as a Digital Clinical Adviser for NHS England, contributing to national digital policy and innovation. Through Doc Abode, he works with Integrated Care Systems and provider Trusts across the UK to increase workforce capacity, improve responsiveness and enhance patient outcomes through dynamic care coordination and real-time visibility of clinical resources.

In this episode, Steve Roest, CEO of PocDoc speaks to Lord James Bethell. Lord Bethell is an entrepreneur, former health minister and champion for public health. He has a twenty-year track record working across government, media and industry, working at The Sunday Times, the US Senate, and the EU Commission. He has built and sold communications companies and helped make the Ministry of Sound a global success story. As a minister at the Department for Health and Social Care, he helped lead the UK national response to the Covid epidemic. He is currently a member of the House of Lords, chairman of Business for Health, a Fellow at King’s College London and a senior counsel to several health companies.

On today's show, Steve Roest, CEO of PocDoc speaks to Dr Natalie Banner is Chief Ethics and Engagement Officer at Genomics England, an organisation owned by the UK Government to provide the evidence and digital systems to drive advances in genomic research and medicine, and to support the implementation of genomics in healthcare. Genomics is being hailed as one of the big developments that will usher in an age of health, wealth and prosperity, but do you really know what it means? And what the ethical issues are around mapping our entire genetic structures? Natalie is responsible for helping Genomics England navigate the complex ethical challenges that arise at the intersection of genomic technology and care, ensuring that the organisation is a trustworthy steward of participants’ data. This includes oversight for research regulatory compliance, extensive public and research participant engagement work, improving transparency and embedding meaningful approaches to equity across its programmes. Natalie has over a decade of experience in the ethics, policy and governance of emerging data-driven health technologies. She previously led the ‘Understanding Patient Data’ initiative based at the Wellcome Trust, as well as the research sector Parliamentary advocacy on GDPR as it was being taken up into domestic law. She has a PhD in Philosophy and previously worked on conceptual issues relating to mental capacity and decision-making in clinical contexts.

Valentina Milanova is the founder and CEO of Daye, a gynae health research and development company seeking to close the gender health gap with proprietary medical and diagnostic devices aimed at common, yet under-served gynae health conditions, ranging from period and pelvic pain to cervical cancer prevention. Valentina is a huge advocate for women's health and this show goes into detail on the chronic underfunding, lack of access and disparities in care women face across the world. It also covers how Valentina is remaking the world and winning, increasing access to pain relief during periods with her pain-relieving tampons and eradicating cervical cancer.

Very special show this week - Steve Roest's guest is Igor Araújo, a Brazilian professional mixed martial artist who has an incredible story of pursuing his dream of fighting at the highest level, against all odds. A professional competitor since 2004, Igor has competed for the UFC, M-1 Global, Shooto, KSW, and was a contestant on The Ultimate Fighter. He has won the European Jujitsu Championships 4 times and now dedicates himself to training future generations. Igor credits his faith in God, his love for his family and his commitment to hard work as critical in beating all the odds stacked against him.

Wendy Powell never accepted that incontinence, back pain, diastasis and intimacy problems were "just part of being a woman". She used her physio background to embark on a mission to fight for the importance of evidence based solutions for Pelvic Floor health in women. In this episiode, Steve Roest and Wendy go into detail on why Pelvic Floor health isn't a minor issue, it affects billions of women worldwide. Wendy Powell is the founder of MUTU System, the digital pelvic health solution clinically validated and contracted by the NHS, and partnered with a major US insurer. She leads innovation in evidence-based, accessible care for women, bridging clinical credibility with scalable digital delivery to close the global care gap in pelvic and core health.

Devika Wood, Steve Roest's guest on this show, is the CEO of Brain+, a pioneering health technology company transforming dementia care through its digital platform, Ayla. Devika is also one of the most inspirational people in European HealthTech. Over the past 13+ years, she has worked across startups and multinationals, from Google and Babylon to founding Vida, which exited in 2019, and leading digital health strategy at AXA Health. Recognised as a Forbes 30 Under 30 entrepreneur, She has also been named King’s Entrepreneur of the Year and featured in the United Nations #SheInnovates campaign for advancing healthcare innovation and championing women in STEM. She is also the co-founder of WEALTH: Women in Health, a growing global community for female leaders in healthcare.

Dan Vahdat is the founder and CEO of Huma, a healthcare AI company valued at over $1 billion, dedicated to accelerating the adoption of digital solutions in healthcare and research. In this episode he speaks to Steve Roest, founder and CEO of PocDoc on his journey to creating Huma, his philosophies on growing complex companies in complex industries and on why he split Huma into units with their own CEO. Huma’s technology has powered more than 1,000 clinical trials and is used in 4,500 hospitals and clinics across the US and beyond. Its platform has screened, triaged, and engaged over 50 million individuals, with millions of active users across its products in more than 70 countries. In 2023, Dan was selected as HealthTech Leader of the Year, and Huma has received the prestigious Prix Galien award twice. Dan is also a member of the World Economic Forum.

Giles Tully is CEO of PinPoint Data Science, the company behind the ‘PinPoint Test’, a completely unique AI-driven test that can diagnose 9 of the top 14 most common cancers faster, better and more affordably than the current NHS process. Giles lost his mother at 16 and has used that event to fuel his career which includes going to China with no Mandarin, learning the language and ending up producing one of China's most popular rock bands and becoming a popstar in China himself.

Pam Garside is one of the most well respected, well connected people in the UK and European healthcare industry. She is an advisor to the NHS, venture capital investors and the UK government. She is also a leading angel investor, having supported generations of entrepreneurs on their journey. Pam Garside has had a career in health care systems and digital health in the UK and internationally and is an angel investor in early-stage health tech companies. She is Chair of Cambridge Angels and sits on the board of Crown Place Venture Capital Trust, as well as founding and co-chairing The Cambridge Health Network.

It's summer, the sun is shining and temptation is high. How many of us are consuming more than we want to, of alcohol or other substances? How many of us want to either reduce or stop, but can't? How can technology play a role? That's where Dr David McLaughan comes in, with his digital app and community, Curb. Many of us want to reduce our consumption of harmful substances, but can't. Some of us would benefit from completely stopping. In addition to Curb, David is one of the UK's leading addiction psychiatrists, works at the Priory and has contributed to international treatment guidelines, academic journals as well as mainstream media outlets. Additionally, he serves as Academic Secretary of The Royal College of Psychiatrists' Addiction Faculty.

The timing for this show is perfect with the upcoming NHS 10 Year Plan being announced imminently. The “NHS is slow to adopt technology” but “the UK has great innovative tech” debate has raged for years. Our guest today Richard Stubbs, the Chief Executive of Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber is a veteran of this back and forth and the perfect guest. Richard and his team work alongside the NHS to understand the challenges faced in delivering patient care, and to support the introduction of new, innovative ways of working that can both improve care, and reduce costs for the NHS. Richard is an eloquent and honest guest with plenty of behind the scenes insight.

In this episode Steve Roest, CEO of PocDoc, speaks to Sharlene Lopez, a healthcare branding expert on how important branding really is in Health - especially given the clinical evidence, regulatory pressures and complexities in clinician and patient care. Does branding really matter? Sharlene Lopez is an award-winning brand and growth strategist with 30 years of experience across healthcare, spanning both pharma and health tech. She is the founder of a strategy-first brand agency focused on health innovation and currently serves as Chief Growth Officer at Alertive, a leading health tech company transforming clinical communication.

This episode exposes why we should all care more about our pharmacies in the UK and pulls the curtain back on how reliant we are on the work they do. It is a follow up to the show with Nick Kaye earlier in the year around the crisis in funding for the industry and risks to patients. Steve Roest, CEO of PocDoc speaks to Richard Harrison, a 25 year veteran of Community Pharmacy and huge advocate for the industry. Richard Harrison is a Pharmacist and the Healthcare Services Manager for Asda, where he leads the development and delivery of innovative pharmacy services across the UK.

It can take up to 5 years to get a first Mental Health appointment in some parts of the UK. Large parts of this backlog are due to increase in demand, but Dr Melinda Rees, today's guest with Steve Roest, argues that administrative burden accounts for a huge amount. Dr. Melinda Rees is CEO of Psyomics, an integrated healthtech and biotech company that is redesigning how we access and interact with mental health services at scale, to eliminate the backlog in appointments. A 30 year NHS Mental Health clinician, Dr Melinda is perfectly positioned to comment on the crisis and provides a coherent, compelling vision for the future.