Medicash invests £4m in digital healthcare business
Health cash plan provider Medicash has invested £4m a digital healthcare services business, to develop app-based products for the insurance market.
The Liverpool-headquartered business has made a minority investment into Now Healthcare Group (NHG), which provides digital healthcare services through its brands Dr Now, Now GP and Now Pharmacy.
NHG, which is based in Salford Quays, has been a supplier to the NHS for over two years and is also one of Europe’s largest suppliers of telehealth services, covering 2 million people through partnerships with Cigna, Thomas Cook and the Schools Advisory Service.
NHG said the cash will allow it to further develop the artificial intelligence for its mobile app products and online pharmacy, enabling the faster development of auto diagnoses and medicine adherence services.
NHG also intends to further develop its private medical insurance services and also its soon-to-be launched NHS medicine adherence and fulfilment app, providing users with free access to medical professionals through an app-based healthcare platform.
NGH’s chief executive Lee Dentith, who founded the business in 2015, said: “This investment and partnership is a fantastic opportunity for both NHG and Medicash to be able to develop new and exciting products for the insurance market in a live environment.
“Medicash will enable us to explore services and demands for both private individuals and companies, which can potentially provide a game-changing scenario for the digital private medical insurance market. We are aiming to test and develop products to over 100,000 business clients and over 100,000 private individuals.
“The facility to also test how we can shape NHS services and manage chronic care patients through the NHS is also very exciting for us. The PMI market is constantly looking at ways to work with the NHS digitally, and we are currently creating in-app solutions utilising artificial intelligence that can be potentially processed with the NHS Choices programme.
“The fact that we also have the capability to have the medicines fulfilled and delivered by our own pharmacy provides NHG with the unique position of being the only European telehealth provider to own and operate its own online NHS pharmacy.”
Sue Weir, chief executive of Medicash, said: “Medicash has enjoyed several years of growth and is always looking for new ways to innovate in the health cash plan sector. We are excited to be working with Lee and his team to develop new offerings to our policyholders.
“Healthcare delivery will change dramatically over the next few years, and we, at Medicash, want to be at the forefront of the evolution.”
