Hi, I'm Chris Skelton, Creative Director at ThreeTenSeven and this is The Wake Up. A fortnightly dose of health tech news and creative inspiration from West Yorkshire and beyond.
This week we've got three stories from the world of health tech an innovation, plus one on how brands connect to audiences by building trust through authenticity.
Let's start in Leeds. Propel Healthtech West Yorkshire just launched its second cohort. Thirty new innovators, split evenly between startups and scale-ups, working across AI, mental health and patient pathway transformation. It's the kind of concentrated expertise — drawing on legal, marketing, innovation and direct routes into the NHS — that turns ideas into traction.
Propel alumni are already showcasing work at Westminster and winning West Yorkshire Combined Authority innovation challenges. This is what a properly funded regional health innovation programme looks like.
The investment of £4.5 million across two years is from the Investment Zone, which is a pretty serious commitment. This will hopefully continue to strengthen the health tech innovation that's already thriving in West Yorkshire.
Now a big story from last week. Palantir staff can access patient data directly under a new admin role in the Federated Data Platform.
The change is designed for a small team monitoring NHS performance such as engineers working on central data infrastructure. But the briefing document NHS England released says the move risks loss of public confidence in patient data safeguards — that's actually written into the policy itself!
Palantir's access is tight, audited, and for government-cleared staff only. But transparency is the big thing here as the info came through a leak, not an announcement.
At ThreeTenSeven we've discussed messaging around transparency and data access with NHS England before — particularly opting in to data sharing — and there's always been a reluctance to tackle the issue head on. Being open about the benefits usually pays off in the long run, rather than potentially damaging trust by attempting to shield the facts.
Google just launched the Google Health app — a rebranding of Fitbit that pulls data from things like your wearables, your health records or your workouts into one place. The US version also lets you link hospital lab results and medication lists.
It's got Gemini-powered coaching, can connect to other health apps, and a tidy design across four tabs — Today, Fitness, Sleep, Health. There's no gamification or badges, it's just very simple.
Alongside this Google also announced the Fitbit Air — a screen less fitness tracker similar to a Whoop, for only $99 with no subscription.
Now to the creative half and I'm quite light on brand and campaign work this week so I thought we'd have a little chat about patient stories.
No matter how good your brand is, or how strong your strategy — in the health space it won't ever land as effectively as you'd like without authentic patient stories behind it.
Patient narratives are what transform strategy into trust. The data is clear — video testimonials generate 1200% more shares than text and images combined and real clinicians and patients in testimony outperform branded creative by 2–3 times. But patient stories need clinical validation to stand up to scrutiny — outcomes backed by measured results.
The real work isn't in the production, though. It's in the time spent finding the right people — the ones whose actual experience reflects what your brand promises, and whose clinical outcomes validate that promise.
Getting there takes patience and intention but works wonders in substantiating your positioning and helping your messaging ring true.
That's my stories for this week. Share with someone who might be interested. And if you've got anything you think is worth talking about, let me know! I'll see you in a fortnight.
I'm Chris, and this was The Wake Up.
