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It's no secret the NHS is struggling. But what does that mean for the future of health? There seems to be a shift, supported by the growing availability of health technology, to taking on more personal responsibility for our health, and finding health solutions outside of our trusty national service. How should companies respond to this shift? And what opportunities exist in the health services space?
Cofruition founder Sam Floy speaks to Annie Coleridge, Product Director at Simply Health, a B Corp certified health services company with a 150 year history.
If you've listened to the episode and would like to find out more about Simply Health, visit https://www.simplyhealth.co.uk/. If you'd like to find out more about Annie and her career to date, find her on LinkedIn.
Annie's recommended resources for anyone wanting to get to know the female health space better are:
Dr Chatterjee's podcast Feel Better Live More
The Female Brain (book) by Dr. Louann Brizendine
Annie is inspired by female founders working in women's health, including Ida Tin who founded menstruation tracking app Clue, and Eirini Rapti, Founder of inne, a biotech startup that helps women to track their fertility.
Episode outline:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Health Services Company
Chapter 3: Health Solutions Vision
Chapter 4: Corporate Aspect
Chapter 5: Communicating with the Market
Chapter 6: Innovations Leading Ahead
Chapter 7: Health Solutions for the Future
Chapter 8: Conclusion
Episode Transcript:
Sam Floy
It's no secret. That Britain's National Health Service. The NHS is struggling.What does that mean for the future of health? There seems to be a shift,supported by the growing availability of health technology to taking on morepersonal responsibility for our health and finding health solutions outside ofour trusted national service. How should companies respond to this shift? Whatopportunities exist in the health services space? This Is Better Businessradar, a practical and, dare we say, inspiring podcast about smart ways to growbetter businesses. And I'm Sam Floy, a B2B entrepreneur and founder ofCofruition, the company behind this podcast, bringing you weekly insights frominteresting thinkers, doers leaders and experts. Today's guest is Annie Coleridge.Annie is product director at Simply Health, a B Corp. Certified health serviceprovider in the UK. She leads their corporate division, providing employerswith affordable healthcare solutions for their staff.
Sam Floy
Before that, Annie built and sold Alva, a platform for menopausal women, whichfocused on education, diagnosis and simplifying access to medical treatment. Toget us started, I asked Annie to explain exactly what a health services companyis.
Annie Coleridge
Well, it's a bit of a loosely defined term, something that we probably think weown as a brand. Definitely an internal concept, I would say, rather thanexternally driven one. I think what we mean is we want to provide an end to endhealth experience for people. Right now, what people might think of cash plansor the kind of lower end of the health insurance market is basically afinancing product. Obviously financing in a world where the NHS in the UK iskind of at its knees and access is a problem, financing definitely plays a partin accessing health care. We don't just want to operate in the finance space,we want to move into finance, being an enabler of actually accessing a solutionand getting what you need, like a full care pathway. That's how we view healthsolutions, is kind of designing care pathways, both with our own technology andtechnology with a number of kind of core partners, so that we can actually helppeople get the answer they need, drive that improvement in their health, feelbetter rather than just operate in the financing space.
Sam Floy
When you're speaking to your potential customers, are they internally, at leastinitially, comparing you to other health insurance companies? Or what's themental leap you need to get your customers to do for them to grasp the healthsolution? What are they typically comparing you to?
Annie Coleridge
Yeah, I mean, simply, Health is quite an old company. It's actually 150 yearsold in terms of the legacy. We are a cash plan provider and I think if anyonehas looked at health insurance products as an employer, they probably wouldhave heard of a cash plan or a health plan, and they also would have looked atPMI, the kind of private health insurance, vitality Booper of the world. Ithink that if you've heard of us, you would put us in that kind of cash planmarket financing.
Sam Floy
What does it say? Cash plan? That means you pay a bit each month and then whenyou need to use a service or something.
Annie Coleridge
Yeah, the way cash plan operates is like you pay something each month if you'rea consumer or on behalf of your employees, and they get pots of money that theycan spend on certain services, but the individual would typically buy theservice themselves. So let's say a blood test. They might buy a private blood testand then they'd claim it back from the pot of cash that is in their cash plan.If you had an 100 pound allowance on a diagnostic test, for example, and youbought an 80 pound blood test and then you claimed it back, you'd have £20 leftin the diagnostics pot and you've got lots of different pots within a cashplan. That's how the benefit is structured, but it's a claim back process,typically.
Sam Floy
Got you. Okay. So what are you doing that's different?
Annie Coleridge
Yeah, I mean, I think Simply Health has a lot of unique things that it doesthat makes it quite different to its competitors. I guess number one is wereally see our purpose, which is giving access to health care as like the coredriver to what we are doing. I think that is why this health solutions goal,these kind of care pathways, make a lot of sense to us because financing isonly one part of access to healthcare. I think that vision is certainly broaderthan other cash plan or health plan providers I've seen in the market. We're alsovery ethically minded the business. It predates the NHS in terms of itshistory. Cash plans and health plans used to be the way that people got accessto health care who couldn't afford it. The NHS came around and obviously that'sbeen completely transformative for UK healthcare.
Annie Coleridge
Now we're in a position where the NHS might not be able to provide as much, andthere needs to be solutions at the bottom of the market to deliver on equitableaccess. I think that Simply Health is really mission driven in that space. Partof that is we're also a B Corp. We want to have a very long existence. We'vealready existed for a long time. We want to continue that legacy. Yeah, I thinkthe vision to become a health solutions provider that is unique, I think. We'reuniquely positioned to be incentivized to partner companies, to partner withcompanies, but also to actually allow people to move in and out of healthcaresystems quite seamlessly. We're going into a time where it's likely that lotsof people who are our age now in the UK will use the NHS will sometimes useprivate services, whether that's a private hospital or a new health techprovider where they pay out of pocket and they don't have a kind of corecentral place that they would call their own home for their data.
Annie Coleridge
I think simply, health is really incentivized in this position in the market toactually enable people to move out of different services but bringing themtogether in a kind of core single product or single proposition that allowspeople to say, actually, for my pregnancy care, I want to be in the NHS, butmaybe for my mental health aftercare, as a woman, I might want of extra helpand I might want to find a new provider for that. If the journey to be a healthsolutions provider in some core areas goes well for us, we would be able tosay, here's our ex partner for female mental health, and potentially you'd liketo go to them. We've got a good kind offer to help you get that at the bestprice you can. You've got a kind of central partner on your health journey,which would be simply health.
Annie Coleridge
That's where we want to get to with the health solutions vision and be with youalongside the NHS, supporting the NHS, but also knowing that people are goingto kind of loop in and out of these different systems over time.
Sam Floy
The initial pain points for a lot of people is the financial aspect, butactually you're seeing and your belief is that there are other pain points thatare involved that aren't just financial and they're not as being as well servedby the markets.
Annie Coleridge
Yeah, so I think that the pain point is actually access and finance is a kindof tool. But, yeah, I think that there is huge fragmentation in UK healthcareonce you are out of the NHS. If you do anything with a new health provider,more often than not, the vast majority of the time, it's very hard to get thatdata back into your NHS provider for an ongoing.
Sam Floy
Experience and that the data would be.
Annie Coleridge
That the results are diagnosed. Exactly. I don't think they might be saying, Iused to work for a company called Thriver. Thriver does fingerprint bloodtests. You could get some blood test results on Thriver and you send them toyour GP with an abnormality and the GP would retest your blood. It'sinefficient, it's a bad patient experience. There's just not the levers tobuild trust between these types of organizations because there's no incentives,really. It's very hard to do that as a new player, as a kind of healthtechnology provider. It's very hard to become a credible kind of partner to sitalongside the NHS. I think that's what we really believe that Simply Health cando as a brand to deliver because it has this legacy and also a really genuineethical purpose. We're also a mutual in terms of the company structure. Wereinvest all the profits into delivering more service and more value for ourcustomers.
Annie Coleridge
We really are incentivized to kind of keep helping people access healthcare, ifyou see what I mean. Yeah, I think these interfacing different parts of thehealthcare, accessing different services, it is very hard as a patient rightnow. In the worst cases, people have to repeat their experiences that are oftentraumatic or painful to different doctors, different nurses, differentproviders at different times, over and over again, without getting a solutionand getting access to care. I think that the long term vision for what thiscompany could do is really be a central place where you can bring together allthe different kind of services that you've accessed private or NHS, and have aplace where you can kind of share those insights and enable you to easily movefrom system to system. That's a big vision and I should say it's definitelywhere we want to get to.
Annie Coleridge
It's really exciting for me in terms of trying to actually capture the accessopportunity that exists in the UK.
Sam Floy
Far to date, has it been A, predominantly B to C, to use that terminology, waythat people interact with Simply Health? Or has there always been this B to B,this corporate aspect to it as well?
Annie Coleridge
Yeah, no, there has been a corporate team for a long time and the corporatepart of the business is a really strong kind of growth driver. It might not be,I guess, as publicly known, because most of our kind of marketing spend orbrand spend is probably around our consumer proposition, our consumer channel.I think if you had looked at employee benefits or been to a broker for healthin the last few years, you would have come across Simply Health got you.
Sam Floy
The proposition for the corporates, I get it as an individual. It's like, okay,I'd like to have access to this great solution when it comes to speaking tocorporates. Are you basically saying it's a good thing to give your employeesaccess to this or is there something else that's going on?
Annie Coleridge
I think it's a bit stronger than that, to be honest. I mean, the times arechanging in a way that it may well become normal that corporates have toprovide some health insurance solution to their employees over the next kind often to 15 years. Really, the access to core outpatient services, which isoutpatient, is our focus rather than kind of higher end inpatient care, but thecore access to outpatient services is really the worst it's ever been in theNHS. Unfortunately, there isn't a plan to fix that. Like, there doesn't looklike we're going to suddenly get more doctors, we're going to suddenly do this.I think that we believe that it's going to become a must provide product forcorporates and being realistic about how much corporates will be able to do ina very interesting kind of financial time. The cash plan provides a huge amountof value but at a price point that you could provide it for your wholeorganization.
Annie Coleridge
PMI much higher price point. Also more coverage does the kind of inpatient sideof things as well.
Sam Floy
PMI is a private medical insurance.
Annie Coleridge
Exactly, yeah.
Sam Floy
Cash plans like what's the typical let's say you're at a corporate with 1000employees. Are you paying £10 a month person or is it yeah.
Annie Coleridge
Roughly, often a little bit less. It does depend on the size of the company,whether you've had benefits before. So there's some nuances. Yeah, I meanroughly you can think of it as like that kind of price point. Whereas PMI isusually 60, 70 potentially more a month per employee. So there is really a biggap.
Sam Floy
Interesting. You're going to companies and you're saying this is the future atminimum, if you care about your employees now, then you should be offeringthis. In the future you should also be thinking about this because it'sprobably going to become regulatory.
Annie Coleridge
Yeah, I think if I was being very bullish about the market, I think the viewfor us is we think there's a high chance that it does become a kind of mustprovide part of an employee benefits package. I think what it is now is like wehave 24/7 GP access as part of our plans. That obviously gives you demonstrableproductivity gains and reduced sickness and absence because you are stoppingpeople from having to go to the doctor during the day and you are helping themaccess care in a much faster way than they would get if they were going throughtheir NHS GP currently. Same with our kind of diagnostics partners andproposition. It's like waiting for scans, waiting for care. That is the thingthat keeps people out of work. Burden of kind of chronic disease. Giving peopleaccess to these core outpatient services there is a kind of clear ROI.
Annie Coleridge
We also have mental health provision which is incredibly important andincreasingly important in a post pandemic world. Access to our kind of EAPsthrough our scheme provides a channel into counseling that just doesn't existthrough our outpatient mental health channels easily at this point in time. Ithink the core benefit for employers now is that for a suite of, I guess reallyburdensome but not acute medical problems. Really important, but not like I'vejust been hit by a car kind of medical problems. They're everyday things thatlots of people experience. Anxiety, depression, skin issues, diagnostic issues.We have a way to make access to those things much quicker, much easier, muchless stressful so that they can stay in work, get back to work, feel bettermore quickly. I think that's the kind of core message today is that it reallyhelps. I feel like I keep saying the word access, and access kind of meansdifferent things, but it really does kind of smooth the journey into gettingwhat you need from a health care system.
Sam Floy
It's interesting because historically, at least in the last 70 years, thecomparison has been the NHS. Typically for employees, if someone did havediagnostic tests, they'd go to the NHS. In other countries that don't have thisuniversal healthcare system, are there also solutions similar to simply health?Or are there also people trying to solve this problem in that way because theircountry or their market hasn't had this universal solution and therefore thingshave had to evolve slightly differently?
Annie Coleridge
Yeah, so, I mean, there are insurance based health systems. I think Germany isan insurance based health system. Obviously, the US is a very kind of commonlyknown insurance based health system. Our care models have absolutely evolvedvery differently at a national level based on the structure of the system. Ithink one of the major ones is like the incentives in each of those systems andhow those drive the actual care every day. In the NHS, doctors aren't day today incentivize or paid based on their investigations in any way, they just dowhat they think are the right investigations. That's kind of, I think, one ofthe really great things about the way the NHS is structured, there are otherhealth systems that operate in a much more financially one to one way and thereare incentives that exist that are different. Yeah, I think that the idea thatyou will have some kind of insurance product that covers you for your basicneeds and makes those easier is definitely something that we can see working inother countries that don't have the NHS.
Annie Coleridge
The NHS is a very unique proposition, actually, in terms of health system kindof structure.
Sam Floy
I quite like the pitch for a business in terms of like, use this product and itwill a be a good thing for your employees.
Annie Coleridge
I should say also you can add your kids to your plans and your family. You canalso kind of ease the burden for your wider family as well, which I think isrelevant to employers.
Sam Floy
Yeah, that's good. Has there been any conflict or different or challenge in howthe business is run that you have both this product that individuals can go andbuy themselves and also selling it to businesses, does it ever cause any frictionor any difficulties or has it actually been complementary to both?
Annie Coleridge
No, I absolutely think it's more complementary than friction. I think we have alot of end consumers that see a huge amount of value in the plan and we'dabsolutely love them to go to their employers and say, I've got this reallygood value product that really supports me and my family to get care. Youshould consider it for your business. I think that's how we would love ourconsumer and corporate areas or customers to align. I think the other thing iswhen people leave their employer, they don't stop being a human being thatneeds access to health care. We hope we can nurture them onto continuing theirsimply health journey. I think they're much more synergistic than antagonistic.
Sam Floy
What is your main way of getting corporate customers? Is it typically inbound,is it outbound? What have you found? Works quite well.
Annie Coleridge
I think it's a mixture. We have a fantastic sales team that form really strongdirect relationships through outbound work as well as through our brokernetwork and form really strong relationships with those brokers. That's animportant part of how we get the deal flow and then we're lucky that wemaintain those relationships and have really strong retention effectively. Idefinitely think we can do more on our brand side of things. I think that we'veonly scratched the surface of how we're communicating and how we're getting outinto the market. Although I think the outbound sales team does a fantastic joband definitely then the kind of client engagement teams do an absolutelyunbelievable job of kind of keeping who we have, I think we can go a lot.Bigger with our brand, given the current kind of climate. We can be at a lotmore events and we can be a lot more kind of visible in how we do our B.
Annie Coleridge
Two B. Marketing over the next few years because the opportunity and theenvironment is just changing so much in favor of having something like a healthplan or a cash plan to support your workforce. I think the post COVID world inparticular, it's two things. Like the NHS has been constantly getting worse andworse, but now is under kind of acute pressure after the pandemic. Alsopeople's mental health has not recovered. If anything, the statistics wouldsuggest we're seeing really long tail effects of things like mental health,chronic disease not being managed well, and I think employers are feeling theburden of that. Again, we need to kind of leverage the value of the cash planand get our brand out there more. I'm not sure you said what's working, maybewhat's not, but I think what I would say is what's working is our sales teamare great.
Annie Coleridge
What we could do better, I think, is really make a splash on the brand side ofthings and invest more in kind of above the line to get the awareness up.
Sam Floy
Who is it you sell to in an organization? What's the job title? There a chiefhealth officer or who is it?
Annie Coleridge
Yeah, good question. In general, it'll be the HR directors that we're kind oftalking to day or kind of chief people officer role. Usually chief peopleofficer, they've got more than kind of benefits. They would have HRD or an HRmanager that's kind of overseeing company benefits. Yeah, if we are goingthrough an intermediary, going through a broker, they will hold thoserelationships directly with those kind of HR director level people.
Sam Floy
That quite common to have that intermediary? Yes.
Annie Coleridge
In this market.
Sam Floy
Why is that?
Annie Coleridge
In general? I think what it is that when people look at employee benefits, theylook at a suite of different benefits. They might not only be looking for ahealth cash plan, they might want cash plan for part of their population, PMIfor another, they might want some financial benefits, they might want someother kind of discounts. By going through a broker, you can get all of it fromvia one place and they can kind of talk you through all of the differentbenefits options that they have and then they can structure an overall benefitspackage. I guess it reduces the cognitive load on the HRD to get a great kindof suite of benefits and you've got a kind of broker talking you through whatthe different options are. I think they can add great efficiency gains for theindividual HRDs who might be looking to get a number of benefits at the sametime.
Sam Floy
Got you because I think you said that the health care providers werefragmented, but this also sounds like a fragmented marketplace if you'relooking at broadly employee benefits. Yeah. Are there any other places wherebrokers are typically used in terms of purchase decisions? Is it typicallyemployee benefits?
Annie Coleridge
Yeah, it's interesting. One did come to mind as I was talking about it and nowit's dropped out of my head, but I think lots of insurance does go through somekind of broker. I was getting kind of medical coverage insurance for Alpha as abusiness, I had a broker to help me navigate which different options I wouldget. What was the right level of coverage for the service that were Doing? Idon't think I would have been able to figure that out myself without a broker.
Sam Floy
Yeah, the middleman is often demonized a bit in terms in a lot of businesstransactions. You see how in this case, they're the hero almost. There seems tobe value for it.
Annie Coleridge
Yeah, I mean, they're definitely a really core part of our business. Yeah, weinvest a lot of time in trying to build relationships with brokers, make surethat brokers understand the value of our plans, understand the innovations thatwe're delivering and yeah, I would say that we love our brokers. They're animportant part of our business. I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say they'rethe hero of the story. I might be chastised for that, but they definitely arean important and important they're the wingman partner for us. Definitely.
Sam Floy
Yeah. Better Business Radar is a podcast made by us. The team ADWcofruition.com Offer an all in one solution for high value service companieslooking for a simple and effective way to grow. A lot of businesses don't needFacebook ads or threat funnel campaigns. They need to have a systematic way todemonstrate thought leadership, expand their network, and have the consistent,high quality content to stay on people's radar. This is what we offer with ourfully managed company podcast. If you're interested in hiring us for yourbusiness, then head ADW Cofruition.com BBR, where you can learn more and get10% off the setup of your show. The link is also in the episode description.Now back to the episode. You mentioned innovations and you also mentioned Alva,which was your company you ran directly before. From my fairly uneducatedperspective, there seems like there's lots of these health tech innovationsthat are becoming more and more possible, but perhaps aren't being used somuch.
Sam Floy
What's your general take on the market in terms of this innovations leadingahead? Are there certain blockers? How is it all coming together?
Annie Coleridge
Health tech is like booming, no question, and some might say it's recessionproof industry. I just think all of our minds have shifted hugely towardshealth, and so I think it's really natural that we would see more innovationthan ever after the kind of global event we all experienced. And I think it'ssuper exciting. I think there's amazing innovations happening. One thing that Ithink we forget, I forgot when I was doing Alva is in health, people don'talways want the most innovative solution because if you're not feeling well oryou're worried about something, part of accessing healthcare is that you wantreassurance from a person. I think technologists product people, we often thinkyou could take the doctor out of that, you can automate that. And that's whatwe did at Alva. We recommended medications for the diagnosis without a doctorand without anyone.
Annie Coleridge
I thought that was solving a problem for women. That problem was very relatedto simply health, which was access to people who would diagnose menopause orperimenopause and then prescribe treatment for them. What we found when we dida very doctorless experience was that what women wanted was still someone tosay, we believe you, we hear you. These symptoms, I'm really sorry that they'recausing you so much distress. I can help you. Let me explain your options. Theydidn't just want that from a laptop, they wanted it from a person. I think thatis one of the big, interesting challenges to hypergrowth in health technologyor in health startups because it's easy to see well, not easy, but it'spossible to see that you can automate quite a lot of what doctors do. I thinkwhen you take the doctor out the loop, you're making a big assumption onbehavior change from individual human beings and behavior change is reallyhard.
Annie Coleridge
Behavior change in health, I think, is extraordinarily difficult. And we mightget there, right? We might get to the point where we will get all of ourdiagnoses through a computer. We probably will still want to talk to someonebefore we start taking the treatment, but we're not there yet. What I see asinteresting about the kind of Simply Health vision is this navigationproposition and making recommendations, being preventative and proactive, maybecollecting data that can do early diagnosis along the way. I kind of think there'sonly a few types of companies that will, over time, be able to build the trustwhere you might believe someone saying, oh, hey, you've been really tired inyour last kind of two GP appointments. Maybe you want a blood test to kind ofcheck that there's not a thyroid problem or an iron problem. It's very commonfor women of your age, kind of thing.
Annie Coleridge
I don't think many companies will have the longevity of the customerrelationship to deliver that kind of recommendation or triage or maybe evendiagnosis. Now, that's not where we are today. When I think about how all myinterests kind of come together in one place, it's definitely we've gotmillions of customers at Simply Health. The opportunity to make small changesto millions of people was very appealing to me with Alvarez, I had what Ithought was like, could in the right system, really change women's experienceand access, but I didn't have an audience, and that audience was very expensivefor me to acquire. I do see a world where these things can really come togetherand my interest in kind of optimizing healthcare with technology can berealized, that interest can be realized to a greater scale through deliveringtechnology and pathways and innovation. At Simply Health.
Sam Floy
I think one thing that strikes me is that if we're saying that there's going tocontinue to be high demand for healthcare solutions or healthcare services, ifnot more, as it increase the access. It's something where humans people aregoing to remain integral to it, as opposed to being automated away. What doesit look like in terms of the a better phrase supply of healthcare providers,like people who are wanting to enter the medical industry or the healthcareindustry? What's the trends going on in there at the moment?
Annie Coleridge
So, I mean, I only really know about the UK, sorry that it's so biased towardsthat, but the UK has a huge problem with supply of. Doctors, nurses, cliniciansof all kinds. You've had mass exits, mass early retirements. Through stress andunsustainable working, you're getting junior doctors quitting, moving intohealth tech, moving into private care on record numbers, because the juniordoctor role is kind of so unsustainable and the nurses are on strike inunprecedented ways. There's a problem with how we treat our existing healthproviders, which is kind of the topic for a totally different podcast, but Ithink is a scary thing when you look at just the UK health system, I then thinkthe opportunity for technology to support those workers day to day is reallyreal. You have to then get technology into the NHS, which is hard, and that issomething that the NHS are, but do need to really work on.
Annie Coleridge
I think, to take your actual question, rather than go into a rant, I think howmore technology in healthcare will change the role of the health careindividual clinician provider is you'll have to be less smart and moreempathetic. I think we've probably all seen doctors that are super empatheticand doctors that are less empathetic and they're really smart. As you put moreemphasis on the kind of hard facts being done by smart tools, digitaltechnology, algorithms, et cetera, what becomes incredibly important for therole of the doctor, the nurse, is the support, the empathy, helping peopleunderstand, this is what's going to happen to you. This is how we're going tobe here to support you. This is how this treatment works. Being able to takethe time to explain to people what, for lack of a better word, the technologyis saying and it becomes a much more communication driven role, I think.
Annie Coleridge
I would go as far as to say who we let into medicine and the number of peoplethat we let in. We need to be looking at different characteristics, knowingthat people are going to be using more technology for the hard science.Potentially, if were going to kind of take a stand on that, we might let morepeople in because the communication side would be more important and wewouldn't place such a high bar on early exams and early performance in life todo this very special type of work. I would definitely like to see that changehappen in the UK. Right now, it's like the brainiest people at school go and bedoctors and that might not be a good fit for a kind of technology enabledworld.
Sam Floy
It's very interesting to just hear you summarize it in that way, becauseeverything you're saying makes real sense, but I haven't heard it so eloquentlyput together in terms of that. I read a book recently called Head, Hand Heart,Breaks down. It basically says that the cognitive class, the people who havethe head job, cognitive jobs, have completely taken over a society. That thehand jobs, more manual labor, the heart jobs, nursing care, childcare care ingeneral. There used to be a fairly decent representation across all spheres ofsociety, but now the cognitive class has basically taken over and has resultedin policies and various other things that have dictated it. I think the classicone that he mentions is the graduatization. The fact that you need to become agraduate to become a nurse was, I think, one example where it then, just as yousay, just cuts off people who perhaps aren't a fit for university, but wouldstill make excellent.
Annie Coleridge
Exactly, yeah. You look at how we treat carers and I find it appalling andupsetting. That is seen as not a great job, so to speak, but yet you're, like,almost the fabric of society is measured on, like, how we care for the old, thevulnerable, people who might not be as able. We have just completely reducedthat job to something of so little value in society when it actually it feelslike it should be at the top. But, yeah, again, we could talk about it forages.
Sam Floy
Yeah. Okay. If we quickly circle back then to health solutions for the future,if you fast forward and I'm curious a bit about assuming that there are alwaysgoing to be humans that are interacting with the, quote, unquote end users,what is an exciting, plausible future look like? What are perhaps someopportunities for people to fill in the gaps?
Annie Coleridge
I think the major shift in the way we think about healthcare has to move fromreactive to preventative. Lots of people will have been saying that for manyyears. I really think we're now at a point where there are a lot of preventativeproducts, pathways, solutions, tools that you can use to manage your own healthbefore you get ill and would move into a health system more formally. The earlyexamples around mental health, calm headspace, those big companies, but nowdigital diagnostics, being able to self refer for a scan and access thatonline, all of that stuff, it's really enabling us to look after ourselves alot better. And I think that's the big shift. That's a shift that other bodiesthan the NHS are going to have to be responsible for. We, as individuals aregoing to have to take responsibility. No one likes telling individuals to takeresponsibility for anything, but at the end of the day, we are.
Annie Coleridge
I think employers are going to have to take some of the burden if they wanttheir people to stay well, look after themselves, look after their families,thrive at work. A big part of that will be encouraging proactive andpreventative health. I think it was this weekend, some stuff in the Times aboutshould employers have a mandatory health check that they offer annually forpeople over 40 to make sure that they're maintaining and looking after theirhealth. It's those sorts of things we have to encourage and make it easier forpeople to do that. Proactive care, there's a lot of technology, there's a lotof different things that allow self diagnosis, self referral into scans likemonitoring and being more proactive about your own health. I think that thegeneral kind of opportunity for me is moving the mindset from I only thinkabout my health when I feel ill, and I need something to like I have my healthall the time.
Annie Coleridge
I've got my mental health, I've got my physical health, I've got my kind offinancial health, all different types of health. That's just two. Seeing thatas something that you have to maintain and look after proactively andpreventatively and then what are the different parts of that provision? So,yeah, I think I would say that because that's also my personal interest. It'slike preventative health. It has been that for a long time. I do think that'sthe big opportunity that we need to enable and the big kind of mindset shift. Ithink there's a huge amount of very cool technology on the market. It is justwith direct consumer technology, for example, which is what Alpha was and whatThriver was, we just have to watch that price thing. It becomes something thatonly the rich can afford. That's why I'm kind of so excited about what simplyhealth does, because it levels the playing field.
Annie Coleridge
If you have a product that helps you basically spread the cost of things acrossthe year and get access to the things when you need it, you are making thattechnology more accessible for more people. And that's very exciting to me.
Sam Floy
Yeah. Fantastic. We have two questions to finish with Annie. Who inspires youin your industry?
Annie Coleridge
So, personally, I still probably feel my industry as women's health. Eventhough I'm not in women's health, I feel very attached to women's health as anindustry. I think you couldn't kind of look at women's health and not beinspired by someone like IDA Tin, who founded Clue, and then also personally,there's a founder called Arini of a company called Inner and that's a testingcompany. I find her, as an individual, like, incredibly inspiring. I would saythat those two for me in the kind of women's health space are really incrediblyinspiring. Yeah.
Sam Floy
What would be the best resource, whether that be book or newsletter podcastabout someone who wants to get an entry into the world of women's health?
Annie Coleridge
Oh, good question. I mean, I love the feel better live more podcast by randomChatterjee It's health much more broadly, but it definitely sits on thepreventative side. I think that if you are into long form podcast contentthat's a really good one. I think if you were to look more specifically at,like, nutrition and women's health, there's someone called the Food Medic whoalso does a podcast that's very digestible, less long form and she's reallybrilliant. I think everyone's always going to say on the book on women'shealth, the book you should read is Invisible Women. It's more about inequalityacross kind of all industries for women. I think there's a book called TheFemale Brain which has some really I think, really interesting points out somereally interesting differences driven by what's in the female brain but alsoour hormones, which I think if I had to talk about something for a really longtime.
Annie Coleridge
It would be like hormonal health and hormonal well being. Because it's themajor difference between men and women and their health across the life course.
Sam Floy
Shame we can't talk about it today.
Annie Coleridge
I know enough time. Different podcast, Sam.
Sam Floy
Different podcasts indeed. This is awesome. Where can people learn more aboutyou? Learn more about simply health.
Annie Coleridge
Well, they can learn more about Simply Health on the Simply Health website. Ifthey want to speak to someone about what we do, they can also get in touch overthe phone. Where can people learn more about me? Gosh, I don't know. LinkedIn,probably. LinkedIn is a fair assumption if you want to get an idea of mycareer. So otherwise I'm fairly off social media. So it's LinkedIn and that'sit?
Sam Floy
It's LinkedIn. Yeah. Very good. Awesome. Cool. Thanks so much, Annie. That wasawesome. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Better Business Radar.It's been great to speak with Annie Coleridge about the future of healthsystems. If you'd like to find out more about Simply Health, as mentioned,visit simplyhealth.co.uk. You can also find Annie on LinkedIn to learn moreabout her career to date. The links are in the episode description. If you enjoyedthe episode and would like more insights from leading thinkers and doers whocan help you be smart and grow your business, please subscribe wherever you getyour podcasts. I'm Sam Floy. This has been Better Business Radar. See you nextweekend. Come fruition close.
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