Conversations with... Dr. Paul Upton of Ultramed

Pippa Clarke, Head of Technology, Innovation and Growth at Bishop Fleming sits down with Dr Paul Upton, Co-Founder of Ultramed and finalist of this year’s HealthTech Award at the Tech South West Awards 2020. 

Paul, let’s start with a little bit about Ultramed and your journey so far?

It all started back in 2014, I was a consultant NHS anaesthetist and Medical Director at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust and my Co-Founder, Alan Sanders was and still is, the owner of high-end digital production studio Sanders Studios®. I guess our light bulb moment was when we were looking at pre-operative assessments. We always thought it seemed unnecessary for patients to have to travel to the hospital, sit in front of the nurse and answer a series of questions, when all that is possible online. 

Having worked in the NHS for 30 years and knowing how frustrating it can be to change things in the system, we saw this as an opportunity to do things differently. However, I needed to do this from outside the NHS, to free up my time and get the investment resources we needed to develop the programme we had envisaged. I took early retirement in 2016 and from there we have built a sophisticated online programme whereby patients are asked a set of questions to determine the actions and tests needed in order to get the patient ready for their operation. MyPreOp also has clinical decision support so can aid the reviewing nurse in deciding the best action and outcome.

I guess this is a good time to congratulate Ultramed for being shortlisted in this years Tech South West Awards in the HealthTech category. This is a real achievement given the high number of entries this year. What prompted the decision that this was the right time to enter the awards? 

Thank you very much, we are absolutely delighted to have been shortlisted! The reason for entering this year is because we have managed to get contracts in a number of significant hospitals across the country and we thought it was time that the tech we had developed in the South West was recognised for its achievement in terms of marketing to NHS and uptake. During the Covid-19 crisis we have gone live in hospitals in Bath, Northampton, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital and last week we went live in St George’s! 
 

And I assume that Ultramed has been especially beneficial during the pandemic, as the programme offers less human contact which consequently has less transmission risk?

Absolutely! When we first launched MyPreOp, the first three hospitals who were using it at volume were finding that 30% of patients who were using our programme didn’t need to go to hospital for a face to face consultation.

Initially, we were looking at patient time saving, however there was also a significant travel saving. We carried out a study with NHS Digital and their sustainability unit, looking at the carbon impact of the programme and we have demonstrated some real significant carbon savings by avoiding journeys using MyPreOp. Of course, Covid-19 is another reason to try and avoid travelling to hospitals and since the virus outbreak we have seen in excess of 40% of patients avoiding the journey to hospital. We have now developed a carbon dashboard so we can see if a patient has avoided a face to face consultation, and we can map how far they would have travelled and the carbon saving. 

Not only is there the patient time and travel savings but the programme also saves a lot of nursing time. A pre-operative assessment takes around 45 minutes and about 30 minutes of that time is asking the questions and writing down the answers. So, there is a huge amount of nursing time that can be saved using the technology. 

Yes, I can imagine, and with the current crisis and lockdown, how has that impacted your business? 

I think it would be fair to say that with any innovation, getting it adopted into the NHS is quite a slow process. We have been very lucky to be on the NHS Innovation Accelerator programme. There are lots of different accelerator programmes but the premier one is the NHS Innovation Accelerator. There are 12 fellowships awarded each year and those are to individuals and to their products. If you win one of the fellowships, your product is deemed to be ready to scale across the NHS and has the appropriate evidence to support that. Ultramed has now achieved this landmark. We have seen a substantial increase in uptake stimulated by Covid-19 where Trusts saw the need to adopt our programme and consequently, we have seen rapid expansion over the last 6 months.

Covid-19 is an awful crisis which the country and the world faces but it has resulted in people looking very differently at the way they work and how organisations manage themselves. At Ultramed, we went to remote working at the start of lockdown and my team then asked why do we have an office? We have now given notice and plan to run our company virtually. Our staff prefer to work from home and again, there will be a substantial time and carbon saving from everyone who will no longer have to travel to a central location. 

It sounds like there has been lots of change and innovation at Ultramed. What’s next for you?

We are very excited about the opportunities within the NHS and beyond. We have been awarded Innovate UK funding in the rapid response to Covid-19 competition, and we have been building additional products. The new products are all related to people filling in their information before they need an appointment. As an example, outpatients may fill in MyUrology® to see if they need to see the urologist or whether tests can be organised. If the patient does need to see the consultant face to face, the appointment will be quicker because they have already filled in the necessary questions. The Innovate UK funding has been really helpful to allow the development of these new products.

We are also applying for an NIHR grant with the University of Plymouth to further develop the tech, and we have been selected by Healthcare UK, which is the catalyst of the DIT, as one of the Top 100 Digital Health Companies. So, there is plenty going on and we are very excited about all the opportunities!

Plenty going on indeed, and we look forward to seeing how Ultramed continue to build their offering. Thank you very much for sitting down with me today Paul and I look forward to catching up on 26th at the Tech South West (virtual) Awards evening.

If you would like to find out more about Ultramed and the products they offer, please visit their website.
If you would like to discuss with Bishop Fleming how they support Technology, Innovation and Growth businesses, please click here.