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The latest innovations in healthcare, including a digital patient check-in platform across London emergency departments and digital adult screening.
Streamwave rolls out digital patient check-in platform
Healthcare technology company Streamwave has launched its Patient Check-in platform at Northwick Park Hospital’s Emergency Department, following an initial deployment at St George’s Hospital in Tooting. The cloud-based software allows emergency department patients to initiate their care registration and triage process immediately on arrival by scanning a QR code with their own smartphones.
The platform prompts patients to complete a brief digital self-assessment detailing their symptoms. This structured clinical data is transmitted to healthcare teams before face-to-face evaluations, assisting clinicians in prioritising urgent cases, optimising department workflow, and displaying live waiting time updates to patients.
Since its initial deployment at St George’s Hospital in 2023, more than 180,000 patients have used the app-free system, resulting in reported triage time reductions of up to 50%. The rollout to Northwick Park Hospital – operated by London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust and handling over 100,000 emergency visits a year – aims to ease intake bottlenecks and reduce reception wait times.
“Anything that helps us understand a patient’s needs earlier can make a real difference in a busy Emergency Department,” said Vicky Timms, clinical lead for emergency medicine at Northwick Park Hospital. “Streamwave Patient Check-in gives our teams earlier visibility of patient information, streamlines the check-in process and helps us improve patient flow while delivering a better experience for patients arriving at our Emergency Department.”
Imperial College London and Smith+Nephew establish surgical robotics centre
Imperial College London and medical technology company Smith+Nephew have launched a five-year partnership to establish a research centre focused on advancing robotic surgery for musculoskeletal conditions.
Located within the Hamlyn Centre at Imperial’s Institute of Global Health Innovation, the facility is Smith+Nephew’s first university-hosted research centre and Imperial’s first industry-dedicated medical technology centre.
The joint initiative aims to accelerate the translation of academic research in computer vision, sensing and robotics into clinical practice. Rather than using traditional IP licensing or spinout pathways, Smith+Nephew engineers and clinicians will be co-located with university researchers to co-develop non-invasive surgical technologies. Research projects will include markerless registration and tracking, which removes the need to bolt pins to bone during surgery, and real-time adaptive computer vision to analyse patient anatomy.
Led by Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena, co-director of the Hamlyn Centre, the unit will support a senior postdoctoral researcher and up to seven fully funded PhD studentships over the five-year agreement.
“Translational research on health devices has historically had two main routes to patients: licensing or spinout companies,” said Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena. “This centre establishes a third: academic engineers working hand-in-hand to help develop products with a major industry partner. There is no doubt that the innovations discovered within this centre will hold major impact for the medical technology industry as a whole and its patients.”
Healix Health launches employer-focused connected cancer care pathway
Corporate healthcare trust provider Healix Health has launched the Cancer Care Performance Pathway, an integrated cancer management model developed in partnership with digital cancer platform Perci Health and healthcare analytics firm Health Value Alliance (HVA).
The pathway connects corporate health risk assessments, early screening, treatment navigation and long-term survivorship support into a single service.
Designed to address rising cancer incidence among working-age populations and reduce corporate productivity losses, the pathway uses a personalised Health Risk Assessment (HRA) to evaluate employee cancer and metabolic risk profiles. Individuals with abnormal screening flags are guided by cancer nurse specialists, who coordinate care, assist with appointment scheduling across both NHS and private providers, and provide ongoing case management. The service also incorporates psychological support, prehabilitation, and return-to-work planning.
Through its integration with HVA’s healthcare intelligence platform, the service synthesises clinical, operational, claims, and risk data to provide corporate clients with population health reporting. This data reporting enables employers to identify workforce health trends, adjust health benefit design and track preventative care outcomes.
“Cancer is one of the biggest health challenges facing UK employers, and it’s a challenge that’s only building, with more people diagnosed at a younger age and more living, and working, with cancer for longer,” said Sarah Taylor, director of corporate healthcare proposition at Healix Health. “Prevention is where this really comes into its own. It’s where employers stand to save the most, and where cancer can be stopped in its tracks before it ever becomes a costly, disruptive diagnosis.”
NHS England awards adult screening digital contract to Netcompany
NHS England has picked IT services company Netcompany as its digital delivery partner for all seven national adult screening programmes in a five-year contract valued at over £215 million.
Starting this month, the partnership forms a core part of the NHS Digital Prevention Services Programme (DPSP) and supports the government’s strategic shift towards preventative care.
The contract covers screening pathways for breast, cervical and bowel cancers – managing around 15 million patient invitations a year. Under the agreement, Netcompany will maintain and modernise current infrastructure while building sovereign, NHS-owned platforms, including a new national breast screening system and an enhanced digital cervical screening pathway featuring at-home HPV self-testing kits.
Netcompany will deliver the software alongside a network of UK partners – including dxw, Create Change, Adroc and Softwire – committing at least a third of contract revenue to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The agreement also establishes a Screening Innovation Fund to back SME-led proofs of concept, with a target of ensuring one in five supply chain suppliers is led by underrepresented groups.
“Screening saves lives, and this is one of the most important and ambitious digital programmes anywhere in government,” said Richard Davies, UK country managing partner of Netcompany. “Replacing national systems at this scale while keeping screening running without interruption is a serious engineering challenge… We will build modern, secure, data-driven platforms that allow the NHS to target screening with a precision that legacy systems were never designed to deliver.”
MyWay Digital Health scores highly in review for diabetes management platform
Digital health company MyWay Digital Health – a spinout from the University of Dundee – has been named the top-rated chronic disease management and prevention platform for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity by digital health evaluation organisation ORCHA. The company achieved a 95% compliance score in the ORCHA Baseline Review.
Supported by the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme (CEP) and InnoScot Health, MyWay Digital Health provides smart, connected technology that enables patients to track clinical data – including blood glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol – alongside access to educational courses and lifestyle guidance.
Co-founder and chief executive Debbie Wake also leads NHS Scotland’s national platform, MyDiabetesMyWay, which gives patients direct access to their NHS health records to support self-management and improve clinical outcomes. The company, which secured £3m in investment last year, is expanding its focus toward international healthcare markets following its latest accreditation.
“Scotland’s innovators are true leaders in data-driven care, helping patients to manage their conditions earlier and more effectively, while preventing longer-term complications and improving outcomes,” said Gillian Henderson, head of innovation commercialisation at InnoScot Health. “MyWay Digital Health is a great example of that in action.”
