Swiss Business Hub/Embassy of Switzerland in the UK: NHS Covid-19 app: how government and Swiss industry successfully collaborated against Covid-19 in the UK #techUKDigitalPS
13,000 lives were saved in the UK by the NHS Covid-19 app. The innovation was started by a global medtech company, Zühlke with headquarters in Zürich.
Overall, the NHS Covid-19 app has been one of the most used medical device apps worldwide. The app was downloaded over 30 million times (unique, non-repeat downloads), which is 56% of the eligible population. The amount of UK demand for a contact tracing app is among the highest worldwide. The NHS Covid-19 app was procured by the government after closely collaborating with Zühlke, who developed and designed the app. It took 12 weeks to deliver and was launched on 24th September 2020. During those urgent 12 weeks, the team at Zühlke designed, built, tested, and released the software application.
The app was rolled out without major issue and cost-effectively - the engineering budget to build it was less than 50p per user. There were no time delays, no going over budget, and no major outages in the app’s launch.
Wolfgang Emmerich has been CEO of Zühlke since 2009 and described his satisfaction with the app’s development to Swiss Business Hub UK+Ireland:
“Everyone involved is hugely proud of the number of lives saved, and also the million cases averted given the long-term suffering the disease causes many who contract it. The app was developed in just 12 weeks by a global team of 75 of our best people, including our product and design team, who ensured usability and uptake, architects who know how to design secure systems that can scale, and software engineers who developed and tested effectively to ensure its high quality. It quickly became the second-most downloaded free app of 2020 in the UK with over 30 million downloads and 20 million active users. Despite the short development period, the app achieved a number of technological innovations to protect privacy while ensuring the maximum accuracy and usability. It also achieved the innovation of achieving the ultra-rigorous official designation from the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) as a "medical device”
Zühlke continued to collaborate with UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) after the app was launched. New versions have been deployed regularly by Zuhlke and UKHSA maintained an open software code repository until quite recently. Amongst other factors, the sophisticated quality of the app makes it the UK’s first certified mobile medical device. This paves the way for other developers setting out to create Software-as-a-Medical-Device.
Zooming out a bit, a more inviting medtech procurement landscape is being laid out for future developers looking to replicate Zühlke’s success. The NHS’s Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC) was launched in 2021 to encourage “innovators who are seeking to understand what the NHS is looking for”. The UK’s Medical Technology Strategy 2023 places value on global trends and “digital transformation of diagnostics through new technologies such as AI”. The Life Sciences Vision was set out in 2021 to “accelerate the development of…digital tools to bring life-changing innovations to patients more quickly”. It also tells us to be “mindful that the UK is only one part of a much larger – and exceptionally and increasingly competitive – global ecosystem”. In 2022, the government’s plan for digital health and social care says how the UK sector “can learn from best practice used in consumer-facing apps, as well as health apps being developed internationally”.
This article was written by George Brooke-Smith, Trade Officer Swiss Business Hub UK + Ireland. To learn more about the Swiss Business Hub, please click here.
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