Hi friends,
What a week to be a wrist. Whoop is sticking board-certified doctors into its app while Googleās stripping Fitbit down to a Ā£99 sensor with no screen, no subscription, and no opinions of its own. PCOS finally gets a name that reflects what it actually is, and the NHS Innovation Minister resigned mid-rollout while Palantir was being handed the keys to all our lovely identifiable patient data. Also Wes sacked himself. Quiet one.
Good news (literally). Pigeon Insider has launched.
Pigeon Insider is the long-form upgrade to this lovely newsletter. Itās your way of supporting this one whilst getting some superb (if we do say so) deep research, analysis and views.
This week, Iām looking into companies using AI in mental health. AI therapy bots are either the answer to a broken access problem or a safety scandal waiting to happen.
Iām digging into where the evidence actually is, whatās genuinely working in digital mental health, what the optimal tech stack looks like, where the AI hype is getting ahead of the regulation, and the questions clinicians and commissioners should be asking before any of this gets near a patient.
Released on Thursday. Back catalogue available once you sign up. Subscribe below.
News Bites š„Ŗ
ā Whoop hires a doctor (sort of): 24 hours after Google unveiled the Ā£99, screen-less, subscription-less Fitbit Air, Whoop went the other way and announced clinicians inside the app via live video, syncing EHRs and adding āProactive Check-Insā that nudge you to sleep more before a big presentation. Iāve heard this modern AI age described as a ābarbellā where you get the super techy stuff on one side, then equally, more human things on the other. Businesses on one side making AI that structures AI for AI, while others monetise just going for a walk with a human. This is another one. Commodity hardware on one side, premium hardware-plus-human on the other. Who will win? Capitalism, so anyone but us probably.
šŖŖ Palantir gets āunlimited accessā to identifiable NHS patient data: Here we go. The FT and the Guardian broke a leaked memo that all but confirms NHS England has granted Palantir staff access to identifiable patient data on the Federated Data Platform before itās been pseudonymised. Fun. It also flags a ārisk of loss of public confidenceā, the procurement equivalent of saying āthe Titanic might encounter some ice.ā Palantirās defence is that itās a ādata processor not a data controllerā and contractors can only see data, not remove it. A comforting distinction if youāve never met the concept of a screenshot. The Ā£330m FDP contract was sold in 2023 on the promise of pseudonymised data flows. This is not that. FFS.
šŖ The NHS just lost its Health Secretary and its Innovation Minister in the same week: Quite the fortnight for healthtech stability. First, Wes Streeting resigned as Health Secretary, declaring he'd "lost confidence" in Starmer and two days later confirming he'll run to replace him. He's been swapped for James Murray, formerly of the Treasury. Then Dr Zubir Ahmed, an actual NHS surgeon turned Health Innovation and Safety Minister, walked too, citing a "lack of values-driven leadership." Ahmed was the one running the NHS Online Hospital rollout, valproate and pelvic mesh redress, and life sciences reform, and, notably, the one who'd said this week that the Palantir NHS contract could be "reconsidered" if another firm could "do the job better." He's replaced by Preet Kaur Gill, Britain's first female Sikh MP.
š§ Limbic publishes peer-reviewed evidence its AI improves NHS clinician wellbeing: Some good AI news. In fact, a rare AI-with-evidence moment. Limbic, the chatbot used by around 15% of NHS Talking Therapies, has published a study in Frontiers in Digital Health showing clinicians using their pre-assessment AI see statistically significant improvements in wellbeing and task performance, plus reduced cognitive load. N=131 across 9 NHS services. Caveats flags up front - Limbic-funded, Limbic-authored, observational, self-reported, and the cohort is 90%+ early-career PWPs. BUT, this is peer-reviewed in a named journal with a meaningful NHS sample, which puts it ahead of the 200-patient, single-site preprints that dominate the AI-in-healthcare press cycle.
āļø PCOS is now PMOS: 14 years, 56 organisations, one Lancet paper: The condition formerly known as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome has been officially renamed Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS) in a Lancet paper published yesterday, after a 14-year global consensus process led by Monashās Professor Helena Teede, Verity (PCOS UK), the Endocrine Society and 53 others. PCOS affects 1 in 8 women globally. The old name was coined a century ago when surgeons spotted what looked like cysts, and itās been actively misleading ever since. The ācystsā arenāt cysts. Itās metabolic and endocrine more than gynaecologicalā¦ and on a backdrop that women have been routinely under-diagnosed because they didnāt present with the morphology the name pointed at, this is long overdue. For context, thatās one hundred years of women being told they donāt have the thing they have, because of one bad noun. Names matter. The PMOS reframe should, over time, open the metabolic and cardiometabolic research funding that the old framing actively suppressed. This taking until 2026 tells you everything you need to know about how womenās health research gets prioritised.
š· Rotterdamās Ditto raises ā¬7.6m to translate doctor-speak into plain English: Heal Capital have lead a ā¬7.6m round into Ditto, which is a free patient app that records (or ingests photos of) your medical consultation and turns it into a plain-language summary, translated into English, Turkish or Arabic if needed. Privacy-by-design, nothing stored centrally, EU infrastructure only, no training on user data. 100k downloads since launch last summer, Menzis (a major Dutch insurer) is recommending it to all policyholders, expansion to UK, Germany and Spain next. Lucas from Heal put it wellā¦ āHundreds of startups build AI that helps doctors document. Ditto builds the equivalent for patients.ā Weāre all patients. And in vulnerable moments, we all forget most of whatās said in a consultation. To be honest, in a post-AI world this feels less ānice-to-haveā and more ābasic accessibility.ā
What to listen to š
Finally got to have Kish on the pod! Dr Kishan Rees, as heās more formally known, is Senior Director for Global Video & Digital Content Strategy at Bayer (what a title), a Watford fan (wore a garish away shirt for the recording) and spoke expertly on why healthcare's communication problem is now its biggest patient-safety problem.
Hereās a new podcast for you. Hosted by Liam Cahill and Henry Stoneley, it's about the actual mechanics of the NHS. Ep 1 dropped this week with Sonia Patel, outgoing CTO of NHS England and incoming CTO for the Government, discussing national vs local NHS decision-making, AI sovereignty, how suppliers actually reach NHS CIOs, and a parting "consistency and courage" call to the next generation of NHS digital leaders.
Events š
š¤ OPUS x SomX: HealthTech Unfiltered
š
Tuesday 26th May, 6pm
š¬š§ OPUS House, London (55 Southwark St, London SE1 1RU)
SomX is teaming up with OPUS (the entrepreneur community) for an evening of two panels and zero corporate waffle. First the investors and operators on whatās actually getting funded and how to escape NHS pilot purgatory, then the founders building with AI, navigating regulation, and making impact land as a commercial argument. Patchwork co-founder Dr Jing Ouyang is the first panellist announcement. Food, drinks, and the top floor afterwards. Iām hosting. Come and say hi.
š SXSW London 2026
š
1ā6 June 2026
š¬š§ London
Music, film, tech, culture, and a notably healthier health-tech track than the Austin original tends to feature.
šļø Pathfinder Digital Transformation Summit
š
2 June 2026
š¬š§ 88 Wood Street
London Pathfinderās CIC summit pulling NHS digital leaders, vendors and policy folk together.
š¬š§ London Tech Week 2026
š
8ā12 June 2026
š¬š§ Olympia London
The big one for the wider UK tech ecosystem. Healthtech track expanding year-on-year.
šļø NHS Confed Expo 2026
š
10ā11 June 2026
š¬š§ Manchester Central
The UKās biggest health and care leadership conference. 6,800+ attendees, 680+ speakers, NHS Confederation and NHS England both presenting their hands. Free for NHS, local authority and wider public sector staff. Pigeon will be there. Given the Palantir storm and the resignation cycle, expect the corridors to be busier than the agenda.
š£ Hash It Out: Real-World Innovation Implementation (Hale House)
š
Tuesday 23rd June, 17:30
š¬š§ Hale House, 76 Portland Place,
London Hale Houseās community evening on what it actually takes to move healthtech from pilot to adoption. Going fast on tickets and free. The Hale House crowd is exactly who you want to spend an evening with if youāre building anything that has to land inside the NHS.
Visit the SomX events page or subscribe to SomXās events roundup for everything else.
Jobs for humans šµļøāāļø
āš¼ Customer Success & Implementation Manager at Concentric Health: Concentric are dragging surgical consent out of the paper-and-clipboard era - already used by 15,000 clinicians weekly. You'd work with the Clinical Ops Lead, shepherding deployments from contract through go-live and beyond. Ā£60k, remote, 80% FTE considered.
ā Senior Program Manager, SaMD at Whoop, Boston: With Whoopās medical-grade pivot landing this week (see bite #1), theyāre scaling regulated SaMD execution end-to-end, dev through FDA submission.
š± Supply Chain Manager at LOAM Science, Remote (North America): Dr Karan Rajanās gut microbiome venture is hiring its first proper supply chain owner. Demand forecasting, inventory planning, contract manufacturer management, 3PL relationships, the lot. Reports to the COO, fully remote (must be North America-based). CPG/DTC background ideal, Excel chops mandatory.
š«š· Doctolib is hiring 150 in London (multiple roles open): Following their Ā£100m UK push and Medicus acquisition, Doctolib is opening a full R&D centre in London and hiring across product, engineering and clinical. If you wanted to be at the start of a major European healthtech putting boots on the ground in NHS primary care, this is the moment.
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See you next week, Pigeon fans āš¼
Healthtech Pigeon is produced by SomX - the media-led communications and creative agency for healthcare. We help healthtech, biotech, pharma and public sector organisations tell sharper stories through strategy, PR, content, design, events and media production. Built by clinicians, scientists and creatives who know the space. Work with us.
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