At Accurx, we’re working towards a health system where everyone involved in a patient’s care can communicate with each other. To achieve this, it’s vital that our software is built on a robust foundation of clinical experience and understanding.
We’re lucky to have our very own Clinical team for that very purpose. Here, Clinical Leads Rob and Chris introduce the brilliant work they do, from their responsibilities and priorities to how their experience and expertise shapes Accurx’s software.
Chris — Clinical Lead — Primary care
Clinical background:
I came to healthcare in my early 20s when I decided to study medicine as a graduate. During my GP training, I worked in a variety of settings and specialties (paediatrics, mental health, A&E, medicine, surgery and public health) and started working as a GP in 2018. Since joining Accurx eight months ago, I have continued working as a GP — one day a week — to keep myself in practice.
Role at Accurx:
I’m a Clinical Lead for Accurx and work in what’s called our ‘GP clan’ which focuses on developing our software for primary care users. I act as a subject matter expert, while embedding myself in different product teams (the teams that build Accurx’s software). This involves lots of responsibilities, from helping to target and conduct user research to providing clinical context. I also review clinical content such as the questions in our Florey questionnaires and make sure we’re being attentive to potential clinical risks in how our software works.
How clinical experience shapes our software:
As a Clinical Lead, I and the rest of my team look to provide invaluable insights into how our products and projects might be received in healthcare. We provide a clinical voice in discussions with frontline workers, ICBs and other external stakeholders to help bridge the gap between clinician and product teams.
Why the clinical team is so important at Accurx:
Without a clinical team, the lived experience of working in healthcare — with all its pain points, infrastructure and processes — would be missing at Accurx. We help to anchor Accurx in that lived experience and ensure that, rather than solely following a hunch we have or delivering an update we’d like to see — we’re creating the software that has the greatest possible impact for our end users.
Rob — Clinical Lead — Secondary care
Clinical background:
After finishing medical school, I practised as a NHS doctor for 5 years, working across a range of secondary care settings, from large teaching hospitals in London to small district general hospitals in Yorkshire. I also worked in a number of different specialties including acute medicine, general surgery, and A&E, before then specialising in ophthalmology for three years.
More recently I’ve been fortunate to be able to combine my interests in medicine and technology by working in the health tech and biotech sectors, helping to develop an electronic patient record platform and novel drug therapies.
Role at Accurx:
I work as a Clinical Lead in Accurx’s Trust Clan — the part of the company developing software for our users in hospital trusts and the community. In that role I work closely with our product and user research teams to help ensure the products we build are clinically safe and useful. I also work with our partnership and operations teams to help trusts deploy and make best use of our products.
How clinical experience shapes our software:
Along with my other clinical colleagues, I draw on my clinical experience every day in order to be the voice of the healthcare professional and the patient within the company. This helps us to really understand the needs and pain points of our users so that we can build software that makes their lives easier.
Why the clinical team is so important at Accurx:
The clinical team, along with the user research team, provide the context that helps Accurx build relevant, useful and safe software for healthcare professionals and patients. We also work to ensure that Accurx complies with NHS Digital standards so that we’re ticking all the right boxes for our products to be used safely in hospital trusts.
“The NHS faces many substantial challenges, in particular, around discharging patients from hospital to social care, tackling the secondary care backlog, and in making a shift from providing primarily reactive care to preventative care. There are no simple solutions to these problems, but improving communication between healthcare teams and patients will certainly play a part. So I’m excited about what we’re doing at Accurx and optimistic about how it can help.” — Rob
Interested in joining Chris and Rob at Accurx? Check out our careers page for the latest opportunities!
