In this episode, we conclude our conversation with Umang Patel, CCIO at Microsoft. With Tom, they look at a simple observation: patients go home and Google what they've just been told, so the real question is what continuous, trustworthy support looks like once the clinic door shuts.

They also chat all things AI governance, language access, the economics of value-based care, and a hard-won lesson about culture from the collapse of Babylon Health.

In this latest episode with Professor Ian Abbs, formerly CEO at Guy's and St Thomas', unpacks two of healthcare's stickiest problems: why innovation so often gets bolted on rather than swapped in, and what fifty years of EPR deployments actually teach us.

Together, they discuss the "cost cake" - the NHS habit of adding a new layer of spend for every new tool, rather than cutting old layers out - acknowledging free pilots make this worse and that suppliers who carry real delivery risk get better outcomes than those who hand over a product and walk away.

Ian also reflects on his own experience leading two major EPR deployments: IPM in the early 2000s and Epic at Guy's and St Thomas' and King's College Hospital in the 2020s. 

In this episode, we conclude our conversation with Milica Stjepanovic, Deputy Director of Operations at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, unpacking how the Trust moved from a full to a choice booking model - and what happens when you layer automation on top.

Mel shares the phased rollout that took Imperial from two services to Trust-wide adoption, the cultural shift needed to make it stick, and the results: a drop from 1.7 million to 1.2 million booked appointments, with the difference coming out of unnecessary rebooking and DNAs rather than patient access. 

In part two of our series with Umang Patel, CCIO at Microsoft, Tom and Umang explore what the NHS's digital future really looks like once you get past the infrastructure excuses - and who's actually driving change. Drawing on real clinical encounters, startup lessons, and a candid conversation about purpose vs profit, this episode argues that the bottleneck was never the technology. It was always the context locked inside people's heads - and whether we're brave enough to let go of it.

In episode 2 of our series with Professor Ian Abbs (former CEO of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust), we discuss what it actually takes to lead one of England's largest healthcare organisations - and why the NHS systemically underestimates the risk of doing nothing.

Ian traces his CMO-to-CEO transition, his "inverted triangle" leadership philosophy, and the cultural and structural barriers that slow NHS innovation adoption - highlighting DrDoctor's own deployment at GSTT and how, even though DrDoctor was made available to NHS organisations for free via the zero-tariff innovation programme, almost none could execute on it. 

In the second episode of DrDoctor Will See You Now with Imperial College Healthcare, we look at the numbers. Since going live in August of last year, the results have been striking: hospital cancellations down 59%, patient-initiated cancellations down 45%, and the DNA rate dropping to an all-time trust low of 9.4% - with a target of 7% firmly in sight.

Mel and Tom also dig into how the backlog is defined and misunderstood, why chronic patients need a different approach, how linked diagnostic appointments are being managed through pre-validation, and the cultural resistance that proved harder to navigate than the operational change itself. 

Microsoft Chief Clinical Information Officer and paediatric doctor, Umang Patel joins the podcast to reflect on his journey from Babylon and early digital health experiments to today’s AI revolution. Having first met in 2012, Tom and Umang discuss lessons from the 2010s, the NHS’s unique strengths, and the growing role of clinicians in leading transformation.

The episode explores practical changes now arriving in hospitals - from AI scribes and ambient notes to smarter MDTs and clinician-led innovation - and why this moment feels like a real opportunity to scale better, more equitable care.

In this episode, Tom talks with Professor Ian Abbs, former CMO and CEO of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, about his journey from medical school and renal transplantation to hospital leadership and digital health advocacy.

They discuss the NHS's organisational changes, the Guy's and St Thomas' merger, the foundation trust era, and the cultural lessons from early clinical computing.

Ian reflects on personal experiences with technology, the convergence of biology and AI, and how we can move forward in the digital health ecosystem.

In the latest episode of DrDoctor Will See You Now, we explore the intersection of technology and operational change in the NHS with Milica Stjepanovic, Deputy Divisional Director of Operations at Imperial College Healthcare Trust NHS.

With Tom, she discusses giving patients options, control and agency through Choice Booking of appointments, as well as the operational and patient experience benefits this has delivered.

(Part 1/3)

In this final episode of our two-part series, Tom Whicher and Professor Joe MacDonald take a look at what the NHS needs next: build on what already works (shared care records, EPR foundations) and add the missing coordination layer that patients and carers feel most acutely.

Joe argues the NHS is unprepared for the “demographic time bomb” of ageing, multi-morbidity, and end-of-life care, and that today carers often become the de facto integrators across fragmented services.

They also explore a (not so distant) future where AI assistants reduce admin, support clinicians with triage and summarisation, and enable more care at home.

The closing message? After a long “trough”, the NHS has changed culturally and could lead the world if it regulates for open standards and invests in scaling proven innovations.

Buy Joe's new book FHIR and Loathing in Las Vegas here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/FHIR-Loathing-Vegas-Prof-McDonald/dp/B0FRYDV52G