The Healthcare Today Podcast

Our guest this week is Dr Lizzie Tuckey, a practicing clinician and the UK Managing Director of Scan.com.
The United Kingdom has historically been cautious with scans… GPs often refer to specialists before imaging can be requested, while in some European countries patients can self-book directly. The result is that waiting times in the UK can stretch to six weeks, while others get answers in days.  
New NHS reforms such as mandatory Advice & Guidance aims to reduce unnecessary referrals, but some argue they're adding extra steps and delays… Particularly in areas where imaging should come first.
Scan.com has pioneered a self-referral model offering scans and reports delivered within seven days. But as Lizzie explains, speed of diagnosis is only half the story; what matters just as much is what happens next.
So today, we're exploring the state of UK imaging, the barriers to faster diagnosis, and what a more integrated system could look like…

Our guest today is Steve Roest, CEO and co-founder of PocDoc - a rapidly scaling health technology company working with NHS partners and major pharmacy retailers across the UK.
Today, we're talking about the trials and tribulations of scaling a healthtech company inside one of the most complex health systems in the world: the NHS.
We’ll be talking about the real mistakes founders make and how preventative care can tackle health inequalities...

Our guests this week are Leon Kobinger and Nicolas Gehring, co-founders of CertHub, a firm that uses AI to help medical device companies navigate regulatory compliance in Europe.
For most medtech startups and smaller manufacturers, getting a device approved means facing up to three years of documentation, registration and preparation… That timeline can be a real problem, not just for companies trying to stay afloat, but also for patients waiting for new devices to reach them.
CertHub claims AI can cut that process down to weeks, and their platform is being used by device manufacturers and health system procurement teams who want to move faster through Europe's regulatory requirements without skipping the necessary steps.
Today, Leon and Nicolas talk about why regulatory compliance is a bottleneck that doesn't get much public discussion and what faster compliance could mean for medical device approval across Europe…

Our guest this week is Cardiff University’s Professor Daniel Gartner, a specialist in operational research and healthcare modelling.
Every day, the NHS performs a logistical miracle organising thousands of appointments, emergency calls, surgeries, and discharges. However, anyone who has faced a long waiting list or a cancelled clinic knows the system is under immense strain.
We often assume the solution is simply more staff or more money - but what if the NHS is already sitting on a hidden goldmine of untapped data that could predict delays, recover missed appointments, and improve patient outcomes without a single extra doctor?
Today, Daniel Gartner will show us how maths - not just medicine - might be the smartest way to save the NHS…

Our guest today is Dr. Antony Rix, founder and CEO of Lucida Medical, an AI-powered prostate cancer diagnostics platform backed in part by Macmillan Cancer Support.
In the UK, we diagnose about half of all cancers too late, but we also do hundreds of thousands of biopsies and other tests – and most of these are negative. The problem is that current diagnosis tools can’t always tell aggressive cancer from benign disease with enough certainty.
Today, Antony talks about the good and the bad of cancer screening, and how AI could lower patient anxiety if we design it right…

Our guest today is Chris Dexter, partner at law firm Weightmans.
Today, with reports of cosmetic procedures taking place everywhere from hotel rooms to garden sheds and even public toilets, we’re talking about the unregulated ‘wild west’ that is the cosmetics sector.
As the Women and Equalities Committee calls for an immediate ban on high-risk procedures and warns that further delay is untenable, we will be delving into the legal fallout from this regulatory vacuum and discussing what real reform should look like…