Case Study: NHS South Tees Foundation Trust
AI Surgical Readiness Closes the Gap for Deprived Communities
84%
improvement in patient-reported quality of life
£250
saved per patient
1 day
shorter length of stay
Customer Type
Provider
Government
Patients served
1,500,000
Location
The South Tees, UK
Use Cases
Surgical Readiness
Overview
South Tees NHS Foundation Trust serves one of the most socio-economically disadvantaged regions in England — a population where health inequalities are high and digital exclusion is often assumed to be the norm. In January 2023, the Trust partnered with Sword Intelligence and Public Health England to launch a hybrid pre-habilitation program for patients awaiting major surgery, offering each patient the choice between digital support or face-to-face care in hospital.
The program ran for 11 months and focused on an 8-week structured pre-habilitation journey. Patients were recruited from the most deprived postcodes in the region, and evaluation tracked quality of life, programme preference, length of stay, and cost of delivery — from entry to exit.
What the results showed challenged conventional assumptions: nearly half of a high-risk, digitally underserved population chose AI-supported pre-habilitation over in-person care. They got better outcomes for it, and the NHS Trust saved thousands of pounds at the same time.
In their words
Impact
Patient Outcomes
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Digital sets a new benchmark that outperforms face-to-face care (81%)
84%
improvement in patient-reported quality of life in the digital cohort
Financial Savings
Achieved while delivering better clinical outcomes
£250
cost saving per patient vs. face-to-face prehabilitation
Operational Efficiency
Digital cohort showed higher behavioural risk factors for surgery, making this result particularly notable
1 day
shorter mean length of stay vs. the face-to-face group
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