Former UK science minister Lord Drayson’s Sensyne Health has announced the commercial launch of the GDm-Health solution, developed to enable remote management of gestational diabetes in collaboration with Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Oxford.

GDM (gestational diabetes mellitus), a pregnancy-related disease, can lead to adverse maternal and foetal outcomes without close blood glucose control. Sensyne Health’s cloud-based product includes an app that connects to a wireless blood glucose monitor, transmitting data, including measurements or any other notes logged by patients, to a web-based clinical dashboard that care teams can access. It allows patients to speak to the professionals involved in their care directly, and the development of the app follows a two-year long clinical evaluation in the NHS for more than 1,000 women, according to the company.

Global Digital Exemplar OUH and its fast follower, Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, have already made the solution available to patients and their midwives. Batoul Mustafa, who used the app during her pregnancy, said GDm-Health enabled her to have “more personalised antenatal care”. 

"The overwhelming positive response to GDm-Health from the NHS and from women with gestational diabetes is testament to its clinically led design and the fact it is technology that is addressing an area of urgent, clinical need. We look forward to its wider adoption in the coming months,” Lord Drayson said.

The three other NHS sites that will start implementing GDm-Health are Buckinghamshire Healthcare, Croydon Health Services and Milton Keynes University Hospital.

“GDm-Health will allow us to provide more responsive and personalised care to our women with gestational diabetes and we are excited to be one of the first Trusts to implement GDm-Health,” said Erum Khan, Consultant Obsetrician and Gynaecologist at Milton Keynes.

Sensyne Health is backed by Sir John Bell, Regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford and author of the UK’s Life Sciences Industrial Strategy, and former NHS England national medical director Sir Bruce Keogh.