First, NIA alumna Caroline Palmer and her team were victorious in the “Innovation Spread Award” category, created to recognise innovations that have been scaled and adopted at a rapid rate. Second, they ended the evening by taking home the “Innovation Champion of the Year” Award. This award is designed to recognise the overall “winner of winners” and comes with a high degree of acclaim as it is selected by NHS England Director of Innovation, Research and Life Sciences and Chief Executive of the Accelerated Access Collaborative, Matt Whitty. 

Started in 2012 by Caroline Palmer and her colleagues at the Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, ChatHealth was designed to make difficult conversations around health a bit easier by offering people a discreet and direct route to get confidential advice on a variety of subject matters.  

In 2019, Caroline, in her role as Clinical Lead for Digital Development for ChatHealth, was selected as one of the 13 exciting innovators to join that year’s cohort of the NHS innovation Accelerator. Since then, it has been adopted by 70 NHS partners across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and carried nearly 400,000 messages from service users to health professionals in 2021-22 alone. 

Konrad Dobschuetz, National Director of the NHS Innovation Accelerator, said “A huge congratulations to Caroline Palmer and the entire ChatHealth team at the Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust. ChatHealth is an impactful service that has already helped so many, and we’re proud to have been part of that journey”