Professor Jim McManus: Zooming out on prevention

In this episode, we explore prevention in its widest sense — across systems, communities and everyday life.

Professor Jim McManus, National Director of Health and Wellbeing at Public Health Wales, explains why prevention remains one of the toughest challenges in health and care. He shares how poverty, place and inequality still shape life expectancy in Wales, and why we must shift prevention from a “side programme” to the organising principle of the whole system.

Jim argues that prevention isn’t just about saving lives — it’s about economic productivity, community resilience and human connection. As he puts it: “You can’t compete with China if you can’t get off the sofa.” He highlights what needs to change — from the way we educate children and design services, to how we empower voluntary organisations and digital tools to make healthy choices easier.

This conversation builds on our recent episode with Rachel Hope from NHS England, zooming out from digital prevention to the broader human and economic cycle that keeps people well. Prevention, Jim reminds us, is possible — but only if we design systems around people, not programmes.

Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by Healthia, the collaborative service design consultancy for transformation in health, care and public services.

Find out more about our work at healthia.services.

The way we design health apps is shaping who stays healthy and who gets left behind.

In this conversation, Amber Vodegel, founder of the world’s largest pregnancy app, Pregnancy Plus, and now CEO of 28x, challenges how women’s health technology is built, funded, and trusted.

Amber argues that health knowledge shouldn’t sit behind a paywall or be traded for personal data. With around 800 million people menstruating every day, access and trust matter.

She’s designing a different path: on-device AI that keeps data on your phone, content at multiple reading levels so information is understandable without dumbing it down, and interfaces women feel comfortable opening anywhere—ditching traffic-light cues that confuse and stigmatise.

We explore how 28x aims to sit between the NHS and TikTok—combining clinically validated content with formats people actually use. Amber opens up her playbook: a year of research-before-build, user research with teenagers and low-literacy groups, and a product strategy where cycle tracking earns attention for evidence-based education. 

She also explains a circular business model: free at the point of use, ethical sponsorships and pay-it-forward contributions, and reinvesting profits into period products, education, and female founders globally.

If you are interested in designing for trust, who should own health data, or how tiny on-device AI could reshape digital health, this episode offers a practical, provocative blueprint. It’s a story about turning design from surface polish into system change—and building technology that serves people first.

Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by Healthia, the collaborative service design consultancy for transformation in health, care and public services.

Find out more about our work at healthia.services.

What if the word "solution" is generating more problems than it solves? In this revealing conversation, Rachel Hope, Director of Digital Prevention Services for the NHS, challenges our fundamental thinking about technology and transformation in healthcare.

Rachel is building the architecture for a new kind of health service - one that's digital-first and prevention-focused. With stark statistics showing a 19-year gap in healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas, and 40% of the NHS budget spent treating preventable conditions, the need for radical change is clear.

The conversation digs into the role of human-centred design in creating effective services. Rachel explains how research has transformed their understanding of user needs, revealing unexpected insights like the importance of enabling couples to book vaccination appointments together. By embedding digital specialists alongside policy and operational teams, they're breaking down traditional silos and creating more responsive, intuitive services.

Rachel envisions a future where digital services are so intuitive that "you don't even notice how great they are, unless you remember how bad it was before" - making healthcare as accessible as online banking while freeing up clinicians to focus on care rather than administration.

Whether you're working in healthcare, interested in digital transformation, or simply care about creating more effective public services, this conversation offers fresh insights into how we can rethink our approach to complex problems. 

Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by Healthia, the collaborative service design consultancy for transformation in health, care and public services.

Find out more about our work at healthia.services.

Transformation is pervasive but we rarely discuss implementation - the secret sauce of successful change.

In this episode, we explore one of the most persistent challenges: how to turn promising ideas into real, lasting impact.

Malte Gerhold, Director of Innovation and Improvement at the Health Foundation — and trustee of the Alzheimer’s Society — has spent his career at the intersection of policy and delivery. From No.10 and the Department of Health to the Care Quality Commission and now the frontlines of innovation, he’s seen why transformation efforts often stall, and what it really takes to make them stick.

He shares insights from national research and system experience, including evidence that only 15% of funding goes toward adoption — while most investment still flows to new solutions that may never be implemented effectively.

We talk about what makes implementation succeed, how to design services people can and want to use, and why transformation depends on culture, capability and relationships — not just technology.

From community-led innovation to AI and ambient scribing, this episode offers thoughtful, practical insights for anyone working to deliver change in complex systems.

Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by Healthia, the collaborative service design consultancy for transformation in health, care and public services.

Find out more about our work at healthia.services.

At some point in your life, the chances are that you'll either become a carer or be cared for. For Charlotte Newman, this reality became the foundation for groundbreaking social innovation.

With 5.7 million unpaid carers in Britain saving the public purse £183 billion annually—more than the entire NHS budget—Charlotte saw an overlooked crisis. Her charity Carefree found an unexpected solution in an unlikely place: empty hotel rooms.

Running more like a tech startup than a traditional charity, Charlotte's team of just ten people has already transformed thousands of lives. But how do you scale compassion? How do you use AI without losing humanity? And why did they turn down £150k in funding to protect their model?

Join us to discover how lean teams can create sustainable solutions to society's most complex challenges, why Charlotte believes the future of care lies in partnerships not policy, and what every health and care organisation can learn from startup thinking.

If you're wrestling with how to do more with less, this conversation will change how you think about transformation.

Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by Healthia, the collaborative service design consultancy for transformation in health, care and public services.

Find out more about our work at healthia.services.

Imagine passing your health data down like a family heirloom.

Not just a list of conditions, but a rich personal history — something that could help your children and grandchildren live longer, healthier lives.

But that future depends on what we do now. Right now, governments are pouring billions into electronic health records. But if the data inside them is siloed, inaccessible, or locked in outdated formats — what are we really building?

It’s a bit like building a library, but locking all the books away.

In this episode of Problems Worth Solving, we speak with Professor Rachel Dunscombe, one of the UK’s most influential digital health leaders, about how we can make health data work — for patients, for clinicians, and for the future.

Rachel is CEO at OpenEHR and formerly served as CEO of the NHS Digital Academy and Director of Digital/CIO for Salford/NCA Group. She’s advised the Secretary of State for Health, sat on the UK AI Council, and holds a visiting professorship at Imperial College London — bringing together frontline insight, academic rigour, and strategic vision.

Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by Healthia, the collaborative service design consultancy for transformation in health, care and public services.

Find out more about our work at healthia.services.

Dr Katharine Halliday, President of the Royal College of Radiologists and a leading voice in UK radiology, joins host Sam Menter to discuss how collaboration, authentic leadership, and ground-up innovation drive meaningful change in complex healthcare systems.

In this episode, they explore:

• Balancing AI with human expertise: Exploring how artificial intelligence can complement rather than replace clinical judgment.
• Collaboration as a catalyst for innovation: Breaking down silos and integrating diverse perspectives to solve pressing healthcare challenges.
• Harnessing hidden expertise through co-design: Revealing and leveraging frontline knowledge to spark effective change.
• Redefining healthcare leadership: Rethinking how clinical leaders are supported, enabling them to lead effectively.
• Improving patient communication through user-centred design: Closing the gap between clinical language and patient understanding.

Filled with practical insights and compelling examples, this conversation provides inspiration for anyone aiming to deliver impactful change by combining human insight with innovation in healthcare.

Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by Healthia, the collaborative service design consultancy for transformation in health, care and public services.

Find out more about our work at healthia.services.

In this two part episode, we talk to Dr. Jonathan Gregory, a former NHS cancer surgeon turned healthcare innovator, to explore the intersection of data, digital tools, AI, and patient-centred design in transforming cancer pathways.

With over 20 years in frontline surgery and leadership roles, Jonathan now works. as clinical advisor for Macmillan Cancer Support, and in roles at Imperial College, and NHS innovation programmes to rethink how healthcare is delivered—from AI-powered end-of-treatment communication to understanding the lived experiences of cancer survivors. He also runs his own consultancy Pivotal Health working with  the NHS, academia, startups, and third-sector organisations to develop and implement digital, AI, and data-driven tools.

In part one we explore:

• What it's like working as a surgeon
• Redesigning cancer pathways and why the NHS struggles, despite simple solutions being within reach
• Health inequalities in cancer care and how systems can be re-engineered to work for everyone

In part two we explore:

• Where the real power of AI lies—not in replacing doctors but to challenge bias and support better decisions
• AI's role in better patient communication
• A groundbreaking national research trial, which is rapidly becoming the largest of its kind

Jonathan’s insights will challenge how you think about healthcare transformation, showing how human-centred design, behavioural science, and digital innovation can unlock real improvements—if we let them.

If you’re interested in the future of healthcare, cancer treatment, health inequalities, or AI’s role in medicine, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by Healthia, the collaborative service design consultancy for transformation in health, care and public services.

Find out more about our work at healthia.services.

In this two part episode, we talk to Dr. Jonathan Gregory, a former NHS cancer surgeon turned healthcare innovator, to explore the intersection of data, digital tools, AI, and patient-centred design in transforming cancer pathways.

With over 20 years in frontline surgery and leadership roles, Jonathan now works. as clinical advisor for Macmillan Cancer Support, and in roles at Imperial College, and NHS innovation programmes to rethink how healthcare is delivered—from AI-powered end-of-treatment communication to understanding the lived experiences of cancer survivors. He also runs his own consultancy Pivotal Health working with  the NHS, academia, startups, and third-sector organisations to develop and implement digital, AI, and data-driven tools.

In part one we explore:

• What it's like working as a surgeon
• Redesigning cancer pathways and why the NHS struggles, despite simple solutions being within reach
• Health inequalities in cancer care and how systems can be re-engineered to work for everyone

In part two we explore:

• Where the real power of AI lies—not in replacing doctors but to challenge bias and support better decisions
• AI's role in better patient communication
• A groundbreaking national research trial, which is rapidly becoming the largest of its kind

Jonathan’s insights will challenge how you think about healthcare transformation, showing how human-centred design, behavioural science, and digital innovation can unlock real improvements—if we let them.

If you’re interested in the future of healthcare, cancer treatment, health inequalities, or AI’s role in medicine, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by Healthia, the collaborative service design consultancy for transformation in health, care and public services.

Find out more about our work at healthia.services.

Dr. Videha Sharma—NHS doctor, clinical innovation lead at the University of Manchester, and co-founder of Fava Health—joins host, Sam Menter from Healthia®, to explore how prevention-focused care, human-centered design, and genomic insights can reshape healthcare.

Dr. Sharma offers a unique perspective on the power of tailoring treatments to an individual’s genetic profile, shedding light on how this can help reduce adverse drug reactions and improve patient outcomes. From designing better digital tools and workflows, to ensuring clinicians and patients benefit from more coordinated data, this conversation shows how design-led thinking can drive change in the health system.

With examples drawn from Dr. Sharma’s frontline clinical experience and his work in digital health innovation, this episode offers valuable lessons for anyone looking to build a more proactive, patient-centred healthcare system. 

Whether you’re involved in service transformation, curious about integrating genomics, or simply passionate about prevention, this conversation uncovers practical and thought-provoking takeaways.

Problems Worth Solving is brought to you by Healthia, the collaborative service design consultancy for transformation in health, care and public services.

Find out more about our work at healthia.services.