🎥 Recording: Better Together: Clinicians + Designers in the NHS 🎥

At a recent One HealthTech event, Laura Smith, Service designer, and Saskia Wrigley, designer and researcher from Unboxed joined Dr William Bradlow, Consultant Cardiologist at University Hospitals Birmingham, to explore what happens when clinicians and service designers work together to tackle some of healthcare's most complex challenges.

Hit play below to watch. 👇

Please note this recording has been edited to remove audience discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiUdd0IbNh0

The session highlighted a simple but important message: improving healthcare is not always about introducing new technology. Often, it is about understanding people, services, workflows, and systems before deciding what role technology should play.

Looking Beyond the Product

The speakers described service design as an approach that examines the entire patient and staff experience, rather than focusing on a single technology or touchpoint. Drawing on examples from government services and healthcare, they demonstrated how services can become fragmented when they evolve around organisational structures rather than the needs of the people using them.

Rather than digitising existing processes, service design seeks to understand how people behave, where friction exists, and how services can be redesigned to work more effectively.

Improving Genetic Screening Pathways

One case study focused on inherited heart conditions and the challenges associated with family screening.

While the clinical process appears straightforward in theory, the reality involves multiple organisations, referrals, communication gaps, and administrative barriers. Patients are often expected to act as intermediaries between specialist teams and family members, creating additional burden during an already stressful time.

By bringing together clinicians, genetic specialists, administrators, informatics teams, and researchers, the project team mapped the existing pathway and co-designed a new community-based approach supported by digital tools. The goal was not simply to digitise the process, but to make screening easier to access, easier to coordinate, and easier to track.

Listening to Patients Before Building Solutions

A recurring theme throughout the session was the importance of user research.

The speakers shared examples where assumptions made by healthcare teams were challenged after speaking directly with patients.

In one project exploring remote monitoring for people with Type 1 diabetes, patients valued follow-up appointments not only for clinical reasons but also because they provided reassurance that they remained connected to the healthcare system.

In another project involving people living with Long COVID, researchers discovered that many patients felt overwhelmed and were not ready to engage with self-management tools. These insights helped teams avoid investing in solutions that would not have addressed patients' actual needs.

The examples demonstrated how understanding emotional and behavioural factors can be just as important as understanding clinical requirements.

Designing With Data, Not Just Collecting It

The session also explored the challenges of making healthcare data useful.

Although large amounts of information are collected across healthcare systems, accessing, connecting, and using that information effectively can be difficult. The speakers described projects that sourced the data that supported clinical decision-making, improved visibility of patient populations and helped coordinate care across services.

A key lesson was that collecting data was not enough. Working with data specialists to present the right data in a way that fits real clinical workflows is the hard work.

The Importance of Multidisciplinary Teams

Throughout the presentation, the speakers emphasised the role of multidisciplinary collaboration.

Successful projects brought together clinicians, designers, developers, operational staff, researchers, informatics specialists, and people with lived experience. Service designers often acted as facilitators, helping teams visualise complex systems, identify shared challenges, and create space for experimentation.

The discussion highlighted that innovation rarely comes from a single profession. Meaningful change depends on bringing together diverse expertise and creating environments where different perspectives can contribute to solving problems.

Creating Space for Innovation

The speakers also reflected on the realities of working within healthcare systems that are often under significant pressure.

Clinicians operate in environments that require fast decisions, high levels of responsibility, and adherence to established processes. Service design can help create a space where teams feel able to explore uncertainty, test ideas, and learn through experimentation.

Drawing on principles such as the UK Government’s ’Test, Learn and Grow’ approach, the speakers highlighted the value of starting small, building momentum, and designing solutions that can scale over time.

Key Takeaway

The session reinforced the value of bringing clinicians and designers together to address healthcare challenges. While technology often forms part of the solution, the discussion showed that sustainable innovation begins with understanding people, services, behaviours, and relationships.

By combining clinical expertise with service design approaches, healthcare teams can identify the right problems to solve, develop solutions that reflect real-world needs, and create services that work better for both patients and professionals.