Financial_Times_Asia_-_April_6_2020

Monday 6 April 2020 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES^13

ENTREPRENEURS

JingOuyang,

left,andAnas

Nader:theduo

founded

Patchwork,an

appthatallows

healthcare

workersto

accessflexible

shifts

W

hen the coronavirus

took hold in the UK in

mid-March, the team at

DrDoctor, a health tech-

nology start-up co-

founded by Tom Whicher, Perran Peng-

elly and Rinesh Amin in 2012, decided it

would focus all of its energy on helping

the National Health Service.

DrDoctor automates appointment

bookings, cancellations and referrals for

more than 30 NHS hospitals across 20

trusts. Within hours, the team had

started building digital tools that would

allow hospitals to broadcast in large vol-

umes about changed and cancelled clin-

ics as all non-essential appointments

were put on hold. At the same time, they

started working on a series of remote

consultation tools to allow people to

reach their doctors by video or phone.

Three days later, the broadcasting

function had been used to reach

150,000 patients. A week later, the

remote consultation tools were rolled

out to hospitals.

Mr Whicher says after eight years

developing the app, he’s never seen the

NHS move so quickly. “In this crisis,

hospital teams have stepped up in a way

that is incredible,” he says. “Hospitals

are on the front foot here, they are being

really proactive and taking the change

management into their own hands. It’s

being driven right from the top.”

Medical start-ups say that the corona-

virus has been like a phase transition for

the NHS, digitally transforming the

famously slow-to-innovate service after

decades of inertia.

Historically, responsibility for digital,

data and tech was split across different

parts of the NHS. In 2019, the NHS

launched NHSX, a unit intended to

bring together all these functions and

speed up the pace of change. “Everyone

knows how hard it’s been to get the NHS

to adopt the best in digital,” Matt Han-

cock, the Health Secretary, said at the

time of the launch. NHSX “will remove

red tape and create a culture of innova-

tion.”

On March 23 the UK government

advertised a £500,000 fund to find dig-

ital ways to support people who need

help during the crisis, offering up to

£25,000 per company for solutions to

providing remote social care, coordinat-

ing volunteers and improving mental

health support. Matthew Gould, chief

executive of NHSX, committed to roll-

ing out solutions “within weeks”. “Tech

can play an important role in helping

the country deal with the challenges

created by coronavirus,” he said.

The NHS is already using an adapted

version of GoodSAM. This platform was

initially set up to alert medical profes-

sionals when someone near them goes

into cardiac arrest, so they can adminis-

ter life-saving treatment while an

ambulance is on route. Now 750,

members of the public have signed up

with GoodSAM to volunteer to do sim-

ple but vital tasks for the health service.

Many other founders and entrepre-

neurs are rapidly adapting their plat-

forms to the present crisis. James Flint

says Hospify, a GDPR-compliant mes-

saging platform he co-founded to

replace WhatsApp messaging among

medical professionals, had been going

for five years by the time it was admitted

to the NHS Apps library at the end of

February. A week later, coronavirus hit.

“It poured petrol on the fire,” Mr Flint

said. “We are adding thousands of users

a day at the moment.” The basic version

of Hospify is free for users. Hospify

makes money from its premium ver-

sion, Hospify Hub, that allows adminis-

trators to set up authorised chat groups

and broadcast messages and surveys to

teams. “We have beaten all our targets

for the year in the last week,” Mr Flint

says. “We have set up an online call cen-

tre in a week. We have doubled our

development side. I’m hiring people I’m

not even meeting.”

The recent focus on innovation in the

NHS has hastened the adoption of start-

ups such as Patchwork, an app that

allows healthcare workers to access

flexible shifts while reducing NHS reli-

ance on agencies to fill vacancies. “Most

of us innovators in the NHS have gone

through ups and downs,” Anas Nader,

Patchwork co-founder, says. “It’s a chal-

lenging journey, especially when you are

in a market that has established busi-

nesses. New players will find it hard to

navigate.”

Since coronavirus hit, Patchwork has

seen an increase in demand for tempo-

rary staff from all its current NHS part-

ners. It has also been approached by

other trusts and the company has

responded by building digital and

regional banks of staff to rapidly fill

vacancies at hospitals, providing sup-

port services, free of charge.

Paul Miller is managing partner and

chief executive of Bethnal Green Ven-

tures, which invests in start-ups that

have a social purpose. Mr Miller says the

present moment is an opportunity for

founders who are focused on solving

real problems. “Certainly over the next

few years we’re going to see the public

sector needing tech in a way it hasn’t

really accepted before,” he says. “The

corollary of that is that the public sector

needs to want to work with start-ups in

procurement processes.”

Founders are optimistic that the

demand for tech within the NHS during

coronavirus heralds the start of a true

digital transformation. “We’ve been

talking about this for two decades and

no one has been able to make a decision

about anything,” Mr Flint says. “And in

the last two weeks, decisions have been

made. Now suddenly, instantly, it’s hap-

pening — and it will never go back.”

CoronavirusopensuptheNHSfortechstart-ups

Thepandemichas

sparkedadigital

transformationin

Britain’shealthservice,

writesHazelSheffield

‘Hospitalsareonthe

frontfoothere,theyare

beingreallyproactive’

Healthcare start-ups may find it harder

than usual to raise funds given the

downturn in capital markets, according

to Nathan Elstub, chief investment

officer at Nesta, a foundation that

supports innovation. He says most of

the investment market is disappearing

right now.

But Paul Miller, chief executive of

Bethnal Green Ventures, says early-stage

investors have a key role to play: “A

downturn is a good time to invest in start-

ups because you’re working with small

companies that can be nimble and are

then poised for growth.”

While there are worries about pre-seed,

angel investments coming through later

on, Mr Miller believes start-ups are

uniquely positioned to respond to the

present crisis. “Thinking about how you

can help in this situation is a very good

tactic for survival, rather than battening

down the hatches,” he says.

Support

for early

start-ups

Investors