What sparked the idea of the Health and Care Expert?

Jodie: It really came from years of frustration. Both Elliott and I have worked 

across the NHS for many years and no matter where we were we kept seeing the 

same problem: clinicians wasting time trying to find the right services for patients or 

patients in the wrong place because the clinician looking after them had no idea a 

more suitable alternative exists. 

Elliott: Exactly. We saw patients stuck in hospital beds not because they needed to be there, but because no one could easily find an alternative or even knew one existed. That delay in discharge isn’t just inefficient, it’s harmful. It means increased risk of hospital acquired infection, deconditioning and worse health outcomes. This problem fitted perfectly into what we learnt at our AI in Healthcare course at Harvard Medical School, which suggest if the problem is too complex, or it isn’t valuable to use human capacity, get the computers to assist.

So you decided to build a solution: what makes The Health and Care Expert different?

Jodie: We wanted to flip the script. Instead of clinicians navigating clunky databases, we built an AI-powered solution that understands natural language. You ask it a question e.g. “What’s available for a diabetic patient in Lewisham?”, and it gives you the answer, instantly. It’s fast, intuitive, and always up to date. It is exactly the type of innovation NHS Digital are encouraging and clinicians are screaming out for.

Elliott: And it’s not just about speed. It’s about impact. The Health Foundation found that even a 1–2% improvement in prevention could save the NHS £1–2 billion annually. The Health and Care Expert help's clinicians, in hospitals and the community, direct patients earlier to community, social care, and preventative services or access diagnostics and specialty opinion, fast. That’s where real change happens.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in building The Health and Care Expert?

Jodie: Honestly, the scale of the problem. Service directories aren’t just inefficient, they are overly manual and, quite frankly, unusable. So we had to build a full end-to-end solution – an automated service directory that is constantly updating and a well-trained, continually learning AI agent that can match patient context, service criteria, and all other nuances that impact on decision making around identifying the right service for patients.  

Elliott:  We knew the tech had to be smart, but also deeply human-centric. With hundreds of health, care and third sector services in every area of the country, we had to build something that could work across urgent care, mental health, primary care, etc, that is as usable to a community pharmacists as it is to a junior doctor doing their first shift in an A&E Department.

What’s next for The Health and Care Expert?

Jodie: We’re looking to launch and expand rapidly. The platform is already showing how it will save clinicians hours and hours of time per week and improve referral quality. The feedback from clinicians so far has been excellent. For every area that holds our tool we will also be able to unlock new analytics for commissioners, helping them allocate resources more efficiently and plan proactively.

Elliott: Ultimately, we want to reshape how the NHS navigates care. This strongly supports NHS England's priorities laid out in the NHS 10 Year Plan: from analogue to digital, from sickness to prevention. We believe smarter service navigation can transform inefficiencies into better outcomes for patients, professionals, and the system as a whole.

One final question: what keeps you going?

Jodie: Knowing that every time a clinician finds the right service faster, a patient gets better care and that clinician is enabled to do their job. That’s what drives us.

Elliott: And knowing that we’re not just building tech, we’re building trust, efficiency, and a more sustainable NHS.