Feb 7, 2023

The Bleepa and CareLocker pilot scheme is providing community diagnostic services in Sussex Feedback PLC (AIM:FDBK) reported a 222% increase in half-year sales and said it is seeing “significant interest” in the use of its Bleepa-CareLocker technology in its first live Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) setting. With over 160 CDC sites to be implemented by the NHS nationally, the company said it represented a large-scale opportunity, backed by national funding and political necessity, which it is pursuing both directly and via partnership approaches to ensure that its chances are maximised. The use of the remote diagnostics technology in the Sussex pilot contract is the first live symptom-based CDC care pathway in the UK. It is “a blueprint for how diagnostic data generated by the CDCs should be integrated into clinical care to drive patient and system outcomes, including a reduction in the elective care backlog”, Feedback said in a statement alongside its half year results. Initial data was reported to be “encouraging”, with an average pathway time well below the NHS’s national target of six weeks for primary diagnostic investigation, with a “significant reduction” in outpatient waits. “Such outcomes, if scaled nationally, will have a dramatic impact on the NHS and in turn the company,” it added, with the company named as a supplier on the government's G-Cloud 13 digital marketplace. Meanwhile, an Indian subsidiary is being incorporated this year to develop opportunities for its Bleepa and BleepaBox technology in the country, as part of the tuberculosis screening programme in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Qure.ai, where a new patient-facing consumer app CareLocker was created last year. So far in the half-year to 30 November, a pilot scheme in Sampurna is the first deployment of CareLocker, where the local imaging centre can reduce costs with the ability to give patients digital copies of their imaging studies rather than film print outs or CDs. Pricing models are currently being evaluated and are expected to generate CareLocker sales “in the near term”, which while initially expected to be modest are seen as offering significant potential if rolled out to more centres and larger cities. “Given the scale and nature of rural deployments it is likely that these partnership and customer conversations may take some time to mature but we are now confident of the benefit that the system can deliver with the evidence to support this,” Feedback said. Revenue in the six months to 30 November were £0.58mln compared to £0.18mln the previous year. Bleepa-CareLocker accounted for almost three-quarters of revenue in the latest period, with Sussex CDC contract worth £0.45mln for the 12-month pilot extension. Adjusted EBITDA loss increased to £1.2mln from £1mln, reflecting the expansion and scaling of the Bleepa-CareLocker platform. Chief executive Tom Oakley said: "The continued momentum during the period, and in particular the contract extension for Sussex ICS, together with constructive ongoing discussions with other CDCs and parties, underpins management's confidence in delivering increased revenues and further growing our customer base.”