Digital Ecology Podcast

In this episode I speak with Pritesh Mistry, Fellow at the King's Fund, about the recent shifts and future direction of digital health in the NHS.
We touch on the major developments of 2025, including structural changes, EPR rollout, and the launch of NHS Online. Pritesh highlights the NHS AI Ambassadors Group as a positive force for building skills and celebrating success in digital transformation.
We discuss AI and ambient voice technology, what is hype versus reality, evidence gaps, and the complexity of adoption in clinical workflows. The importance of not just buying technology but also investing in staff, training, and relationships with suppliers to ensure sustainable change.
We explore the impact of large language models like ChatGPT on both patients and clinicians, focusing on data protection and the need for clear guidance as these tools become more common.
Discussing innovation, improvement, and transformation in terms of how NHS organisations can move ideas into practice, balancing governance with the freedom to test new approaches. Equity remains a key theme, with a call to embed diverse voices and consider the risks of bias as digital health evolves.
Pritesh’s wish for the year ahead is that we continue to acknowledge and share the good work happening in digital health to inspire others.
I hope this conversation provides practical insights for clinicians, researchers, and digital health professionals.
If you found this episode informative, don't forget to leave a review and share your thoughts. Thank you for tuning in!
The Digital Ecology Podcast is part of the Talking HealthTech Podcast Network, your go-to audio destination for the latest in healthcare delivery, innovation, digital health, healthcare ICT, and commercialisation. Discover more at talkinghealthtech.com/podcast/network.

In this episode, I speak with Paul Taylor about the realities of digital transformation across health and social care, with a focus on how technology is adopted within the NHS and related sectors.
Our conversation is rooted in Paul’s reflections on a blog he wrote critiquing digital transformation. Notably, his suggestion that “digital transformation was never about digital and rarely about transformation”.

We start by reflecting on the optimism of the early days of social media and digital innovation, and how initial grassroots enthusiasm sometimes lost momentum as transformation programmes became corporatised and transactional. Paul Taylor shares his experience working inside large organisations and describes how the human and relational aspects of technology were often squeezed out as efficiency and scale took priority.

We discuss the challenges of designing digital services for complex, relational sectors like health, housing and social care, including the risks of borrowing private sector methodologies that may not translate well to the realities of public service. We touch on persistent issues of digital exclusion and the false assumption that these challenges will just disappear as technology advances. There is recognition of the fact that people’s digital capabilities evolve over time, but so does the technology itself, making ongoing support and thoughtful design essential.

One key theme is the importance of local and place-based approaches, and how meaningful innovation very often happens at a community level, not in top-down national programmes. We talk through what gets missed when services try to scale without considering local needs, and the potential for interoperability and open-source tools to enable grassroots innovation.

We end on an optimistic note: highlighting renewed interest in locality and community across sectors, as well as the role of technology in supporting these approaches.

If you’re interested in honest reflections on digital transformation, lessons learned from the past decade, and practical ideas for supporting innovation in your own team or community, I think you’ll find this episode valuable.

If you found this episode informative, don't forget to leave a review and share your thoughts. Thank you for tuning in!

The Digital Ecology Podcast is part of the Talking HealthTech Podcast Network, your go-to audio destination for the latest in healthcare delivery, innovation, digital health, healthcare ICT, and commercialisation. Discover more at talkinghealthtech.com/podcast/network.

In this episode, I speak with Dr Sarah Crossland about the role of failure in digital health innovation. Sarah is a lecturer in medical engineering at the University of Hull and a practising clinician specialising in orthotics. We first met at a conference focused on human factors in digital innovation, where Sarah gave a memorable talk about failure and its importance in the innovation process.
Discussing Sarah’s varied career path, starting with her undergraduate degree in physics, and how experiencing setbacks and changes in direction played a role in helping her find her current niche at the intersection of engineering and clinical care. Sharing her story of an academic project that was technically successful as a research tool but failed to have the intended clinical impact. She explains how the project underappreciated important aspects such as end-user needs, clinical workflow, and the complexities involved in translating research into practical tools for clinicians and patients.

We explore common challenges in digital health innovation. We also discuss the importance of user research, early engagement with diverse stakeholder groups, and learning from critical friends, especially those outside one’s immediate discipline or speciality.

Sarah reflects on lessons learned and how her approach to new projects has changed, placing greater emphasis on patient and clinician input from the outset and on robust methods for testing and simulating new ideas before rolling them out. We also touched on the cultural aspect of failure in healthcare and research, and the need for safe environments for testing, learning, and even failing.

If you are interested in why so many digital technologies struggle to achieve impact, and how failure can be reframed as a source of learning, I hope you find this episode insightful.

If you found this episode informative, don't forget to leave a review and share your thoughts. Thank you for tuning in!

The Digital Ecology Podcast is part of the Talking HealthTech Podcast Network, your go-to audio destination for the latest in healthcare delivery, innovation, digital health, healthcare ICT, and commercialisation. Discover more at talkinghealthtech.com/podcast/network.

In this episode I speak with Dr Lili Golmohammadi and Emelia Delaney, both research associates at King’s Health Partners Digital Health Hub. Lili and Emelia come from design backgrounds but with experience in different sectors; from eco design and engineering to fashion and sustainability, and have now found themselves working in digital health for the first time.
We discuss their journeys into digital health and the ways in which design methods, including co-design and creative, speculative approaches, are being applied in healthcare settings. Both describe how they’ve had to adapt design techniques for working alongside health professionals, researchers, and patients, and creating accessible and supportive environments for participation.
We chat about the challenges of co-design in healthcare, such as getting people comfortable with more creative and less traditional methods of working, the value of good facilitation, and the importance of scaffolding activities for different audiences.

Emelia shares her interests in sustainability and the potential role for AI in the co-design process, while Lili discusses her experiences in translating speculative design approaches into more immediate, real-world healthcare solutions.

Aimed at clinicians, researchers, and digital health professionals who want to understand the value and practice of co-design, and who may be seeking practical ways to involve users more meaningfully in their work.

Links and Resources:
For more information on the King’s Health Partners Digital Health Hub
Stay connected and find the KHP Digital Health Hub on LinkedIn
If you would like to stay regularly updated with the KHP Digital Health Hub's co-design offerings, please sign up to their Newsletter
They have an online course, Co-design for Digital Health Course, which includes 6 x 20 minute recorded sessions that can be completed in your own time
They also have a Co-design for Digital Health Methods Library
Please find their Upcoming Workshops here
Or book one of their 1-2-1 advice sessions here

If you found this episode informative, don't forget to leave a review and share your thoughts. Thank you for tuning in!

The Digital Ecology Podcast is part of the Talking HealthTech Podcast Network, your go-to audio destination for the latest in healthcare delivery, innovation, digital health, healthcare ICT, and commercialisation. Discover more at talkinghealthtech.com/podcast/network.

In this episode I speak with Hatim Abdulhussein about the NHS’s new Ten Year Plan and what it means for digital transformation, innovation, and workforce development. Hatim is a practicing GP, CEO of Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex, and Honorary Professor of Innovation and AI at the University of Surrey.
We begin with Hatim’s career journey, from his early experiences with digital systems as a junior doctor to leading national programmes on digital, AI, and robotics in health education, and now his current leadership role at a regional health innovation network.

Hatim explains the essential function of Health Innovation Networks: there are 15 across England, each working to identify, test, and scale innovations that address the NHS’s biggest challenges and support economic growth within their regions.

We then turn to the new Ten Year Plan. Hatim highlights the three main shifts set out in the plan: moving from analog to digital, hospital to community, and sickness to prevention. He notes that while the plan is ambitious, it draws many ongoing conversations and sets out practical mechanisms for change, such as development of the NHS app, a single patient record, and more ambitious use of AI.

We discuss the challenges of implementation, touching on the lessons from past national IT efforts, the importance of flexible policy, the need for clear national and regional roles, and how ringfenced digital funding will help build momentum. Hatim also shares thoughts on what should be standardised on a national or regional level, and where providers and local champions should have autonomy to innovate and test new ideas.

Finally, I ask Hatim to look ahead to 2035. We discuss the potential impact of a truly shared single patient record, and the ways AI could ease administrative burdens for clinicians. Hatim’s boldest bet for the future is the genuine shift of care from acute hospitals to the community that is powered by technology, for the benefit of patients and the wider health system.

I hope you find this episode a useful and balanced overview of where NHS digital transformation is headed, what’s realistic, and what challenges and opportunities lie ahead.

If people want to find out more about Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex and see some examples of otheir role in finding, testing and implementing innovation in action: Annual review 2024-25 - Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex

If you found this episode informative, don't forget to leave a review and share your thoughts. Thank you for tuning in!

The Digital Ecology Podcast is part of the Talking HealthTech Podcast Network, your go-to audio destination for the latest in healthcare delivery, innovation, digital health, healthcare ICT, and commercialisation. Discover more at talkinghealthtech.com/podcast/network.