Services now, platforms later

Until this week we had 2 teams working on the core of our longer-term strategy. The Health Assessment team, which just finished a discovery and the Personalised Prevention Platform partway through its alpha.

The 2 teams were working on 2 parts of the same journey. Find out your health risks, get support to reduce or manage them.

We’ve discussed whether this should be 1 team and the value of 2 teams working independently. Long‑term, assessing health should happen independently of connecting to services. But short‑term, 2 teams like this places too large a bet on needing platforms. Building platforms before proving ideas adds complexity and slows us down.

Now we have 2 teams building specific use case journeys. 1 team will create a journey for pre‑screening lung health checks, getting screening if needed, and support for identified risks (like smoking cessation). The other helps people identify obesity risk and manage their health.

I’m excited about this change. It gives us more focus to test ideas sooner.

We’re all the app team

I met with Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) this week. During intros, NHS England people referred to ‘the app’. Someone from DHSC asked which app. DHSC has many (Food scanner, Weight loss plan, Couch to 5k, etc).

We have 1, the NHS app.

It’s an oversimplification, but right now the app is a home page with links to siloed journeys. This isn’t sustainable. Adding more uncoordinated journeys will soon make the app unnavigable and never offer the experience people actually need.

The app team aims to create something coherent.

In the meantime, everyone wants to join the app. It’s seen as the default delivery mechanism for much of the work that happens in NHSE. I had 2 conversations this week where people decided to build something for the app but hadn’t spoken to the app team first. They were surprised when the team wasn’t enthusiastic about adding their thing.

Our teams’ work needs to integrate with the app. We’re coordinating with the app team, but it’s challenging. We have much to prove and understand as the app continues to adapt.

I also keep having to remind myself the app is just 1 channel. The NHS is a system with many ways to reach users and a good strategy will use that.

Local support

Last week I read 2 great articles about local health work:

I also spoke to Midlands Partnership Trust about their pilot coordinating psychosocial and community support for people with obesity. Inspirational work.

Our model for helping people manage health risks connects them to services (like quitting smoking or diabetes risk coaching).

Our hypothesis is that connection to services has enough value to start with. Finding relevant, available services you’re eligible for takes capacity. If we reduce the capacity needed, we provide means to start with a service.

Research shows showing relevant support is useful. We don’t yet know if people will use these services or if it will improve health.

I question if connecting to services is the right model. Is the interface‑to‑service hand‑off missing steps? We might need something richer – a human who understands health needs and wider context, helps set goals and supports the journey. That sounds more expensive, but if it’s happening locally, we should help people find that support.

Welcoming our AI overlords

We kicked off work with DHSC this week.

It’s called the ’AI health coach’. It takes existing Better Health apps as the starting point, each focused on single outcomes (healthier eating, exercising, drinking less) and will explore if using AI can create something that offers holistic support.

An interesting project. An important test for offering joined-up care at scale.

The team will run a short discovery. I’m super interested to see what they find.

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