10102842Scaling Alvie's Digital Health Coaching & Specialist Support ProgrammeClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKCancer treatment is tough, often requiring frequent hospital visits and causing health problems. People with existing health issues have a higher risk of complications, leading to unplanned hospital visits and longer stays. Personalised health improvement programmes that focus on physical, nutritional, and emotional well-being, known as prehabilitation, have shown to be very beneficial. However, they are not widely available, with less than 10% of patients having access, due to high costs and inconvenience. Alvie, founded in 2019 by a cancer surgeon and nurse with extensive experience in oncology, aims to change this. They use a digital-first approach to improve access to better health, regardless of location. Alvie provides a 10-week health coaching service. Each patient is matched to a real coach, and needs-based access to specialist Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) and nurses. The programme has had a positive impact on over 800 patients, helping them become more active, reduce anxiety, improve their quality of life, and even spend less time in hospital. Alvie's approach is unique because it combines expert guidance with strategies for changing behaviour, making it easier for everyone to achieve better health. The company has formed partnerships with the NHS, private medical insurers, and corporations and has published peer-reviewed research supporting their approach. But, there's a bottleneck in the system. c.40% of their interactions rely on real-time video conversations through the Alvie App and Portal, making it hard to meet the growing demand. To overcome this, we plan to move away from inflexible video-based consultations to an asynchronous approach. We've already started using chat support but plan to introduce machine learning and large language models to scale this approach and significantly expand our reach. This change will make the service more efficient and also break down geographical and time barriers, shifting healthcare from a centralised model to a patient-centered, "anywhere-based" one. This innovation will improve patient outcomes and make specialised, clinically-validated support widely available. It's a step towards a more patient-centric and accessible future. It will also facilitate expansion into other medical conditions beyond cancer, e.g. cardiac, complex surgery and preperation / recovery from surgery. Alvie's goal is to make healthcare and support accessible, empowering people to optimise their health and have a smoother, better recovery. This project is a way to pioneer, deploy and test new technologies, collect data, and address a significant healthcare and societal need whilst simultaneously achieving great health outcomes and patient experience.