Digital Health Coffee Time Briefing ☕

Your morning summary of digital health news, information and events to know about if you want to be “in the know”.

👇 News

🤖 The Shelford Group has launched the Shelford Surgical Training in Advanced Robotic Technology (START) programme to deliver surgical robotics training across multiple platforms to trainees, starting with the North West, North East and East of England regions. The START programme provides the opportunity for surgical trainees to develop their skills, knowledge and expertise in robotic-assisted surgery (RAS), at an earlier stage in their career across Intuitive’s da Vinci, CMR Surgical’s Versius and Medtronic’s Hugo RAS surgical systems.

💊 Healthera and Uber Eats have partnered to enable Healthera’s network of more than 1,700 pharmacies in the UK to offer delivery of over-the-counter medicines and health products through the Uber Eats platform. Through the partnership, customers will obtain access to a wide variety of products in the Health & Pharmacy category, with home delivery within 10-30 minutes fulfilled by a Healthera-partnering pharmacy.

🏥 Sanome, the HealthTech company behind AI-powered clinical decision support tool MEMORI that helps detect hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), has announced two major hospital partnerships to improve patient care. The Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability and East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust have each selected Sanome’s MEMORI platform.

🧠 Towards, a provider of accessible mental health services, has announced a strategic partnership with UK-based digital healthcare provider Doctor Care Anywhere. DCA patients will now have the option to choose Towards for immediate access to therapy, delivered either in-person and online.

💰 Tetra, a UK HealthTech startup focused on helping NHS elective surgery teams schedule better using AI, has closed a £450,000 pre-seed funding round. The firm’s first pilot is in orthopaedics with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.

❓ Did you know that?

OpenAI is reportedly exploring a move into consumer health tools, including a personal health assistant or health data aggregator.

Sources close to the company told Business Insider that the AI firm is considering several opportunities as it moves into healthcare, marking a step beyond AI infrastructure into industry-specific software.

Recent hires reflect the company’s ambitions. OpenAI appointed Nate Gross, co-founder of public health tech firm Doximity, to lead its healthcare strategy in June 2025. Two months later, it brought on Instagram’s Ashley Alexander as its vice president of health products.

📖 What we’re reading

Shaukat Ali Khan, executive chief digital information officer at the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, makes the case for responsible progress in the deployment of new technologies in an article on Tech reflections of 2025 and opportunities for humanity in 2026, published by UK Authority.

“Looking ahead to 2026, the opportunities to use technology for humanity are immense.

“In healthcare, AI powered wearables and smart patches will move care from reactive treatment to proactive prevention, predicting cardiac events and chronic conditions before they occur,” he said.

🚨 Upcoming events

21 January 2026, 12.30-1.30pm, Online – Rewired 2026 conference and programme update: January 2026