Dr. Ben Maruthappu MBE has transitioned from his role as a junior doctor within the NHS to becoming the chief executive of Cera, now recognized as Europe’s largest health tech firm. The London-based entrepreneur’s company conducts an impressive 2.5 million home visits each month, a figure that outstrips the combined total of all NHS accident and emergency departments.
What began as a modest online marketplace nearly a decade ago has since evolved into a robust operation generating £500 million in annual revenue. Cera claims that its predictive healthcare technology, which leverages artificial intelligence, has already delivered savings exceeding £1 billion for the Government. In a recent interview with GB News, Dr. Maruthappu expressed his belief that the innovations his company has developed could further reduce NHS costs by hundreds of millions of pounds during the current winter period.
Despite these commercial accomplishments, Dr. Maruthappu maintains that his motivations remain deeply personal. The inception of Cera was sparked by his mother’s struggle with a fractured back, which left him navigating what he termed an opaque and outdated care system. Frustrated by the lack of information regarding his mother’s care, he felt compelled to create a solution. “I knew my mother deserved better,” he reflected on the experience that propelled him into action. Before launching his venture, Dr. Maruthappu had an impressive academic background, having studied at Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard, served as an adviser to NHS England chief Simon Stevens, co-founded the NHS Innovation Accelerator, and authored over 100 medical papers.
In 2016, he made the bold decision to leave his medical career and establish Cera. “I’d never led a team, never worked in a company full time – it was a steep learning curve,” he admitted. “But I had a hunger to build something that mattered.” Initially, Cera launched as a platform akin to “Deliveroo for care,” allowing families to book visits with a simple click. The business quickly evolved into a comprehensive home healthcare provider, directly employing carers and nurses while assembling a technical workforce of data scientists and engineers.
Each patient visit generates valuable health information, constructing what has now become the continent’s most extensive home-care dataset. This data fuels the company’s predictive artificial intelligence, which is capable of forecasting hospital admissions, detecting infections days in advance, and reducing falls among elderly patients. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated Cera’s growth significantly, with the company onboarding 10,000 displaced workers into care roles within just 18 months. Subsequently, the Government licensed the firm’s recruitment technology to other healthcare providers.
As the cost of living crisis triggered a wave of departures from the care sector, Cera proactively addressed the issue with training programs, apprenticeships, and a “Back to Work” initiative. The company has received over one million applications for positions, partnering with over 100 local authorities and two-thirds of NHS Integrated Care Systems. A pivotal moment occurred when Cera’s hospitalisation prediction system identified a patient exhibiting early infection symptoms on its launch day, allowing them to receive antibiotics and potentially avoid a hospital admission. “It was the moment I knew we were making a real difference,” Dr. Maruthappu recalled.
This year, Cera began deploying robots into patients’ homes to provide hydration prompts, medication reminders, and daily assistance, with patients responding positively to the technology. The introduction of robots has allowed human carers to focus on more complex cases. Cera has since acquired one of the robotic product lines it trialled and is expanding their use across the sector. Additionally, the firm’s AI recruitment agent, dubbed Ami, processes applications within seconds instead of days, effectively halving the time from application to job offer. An AI chatbot also provides instant clinical guidance to carers via their mobile devices, alleviating administrative burdens and expediting visits.
Dr. Maruthappu posits that the widespread deployment of similar predictive technology could yield as much as £200 million in NHS savings this winter. His modelling suggests that AI can reduce hospitalisations by as much as 70 percent, with avoided admissions, fewer emergency department visits, and quicker interventions accumulating rapidly. “Digital innovation isn’t replacing the NHS’s founding principles,” he contends. “It’s how we protect them.” The journey to success has not been without its challenges, marked by setbacks, sceptics, and sleepless nights. “Blood, sweat and tears,” he noted, crediting his family and team for their support during difficult times. His advice for aspiring entrepreneurs in healthcare? “Passion and perseverance outweigh capability.”
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