UK start-up Cera uses AI to support social care
Social care start-up Cera has integrated an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant into its patient care platform. Designed by London-based firm Bloomsbury AI, the technology, which is called Martha, can answer questions from patients and carers during visits. Cera hopes to use Martha to review digital health records and provide health alerts to patients and carers based upon unusual patterns of behaviour, according to founder Ben Maruthappu. Cera has raised £2.7m ($3.5m) in seed funding to date.
The social care crisis – as demonstrated with the Conservative Party’s disastrous manifesto pledge – is one of the biggest issues facing the NHS. Spending squeezes have led to bed-blocking in hospitals; while low wages and poor working conditions are causing carers to leave the industry in droves.

Read more: The NHS is trialling an AI chatbot to answer your medical questions

One social care startup thinks that a solution might lie in AI. Cera, founded by Ben Maruthappu, a former innovation adviser to NHS England, is a startup that wants to provide smarter social care using an Uber-style platform to match carers and patients. The startup has to date raised £2.7 million in early funding, and in March signed a partnership with Barts Health NHS Trust, as well as several clinical commissioning groups and hospitals in London to test its solution.

Now the startup is revealing an unusual step: it’s launching an AI assistant. Called Martha, the assistant was created by fellow London-based startup Bloomsbury AI, and is designed answer questions from patients and carers during visits. "AI can be even more impactful with the elderly than with the young and healthy,” Maruthappu tells WIRED. The chat bot will be available online and also by text message – a design choice made to target its elderly users. "If you’ve had dementia, or a stroke, you don’t necessarily use a smartphone,” says Maruthappu.