Paloma Health, the AI-enabled healthtech startup reducing wait times for access to critical NHS health services, has raised £2m in a pre-seed round. The round was led by Triple Point Ventures, with co-investors Heal Capital and expert angels, including Pam Garside, Co-chair Cambridge Health Network, and James Allgrove, ex-Stripe. The funding will support the roll-out of Paloma Health’s first NHS service providing children and young people’s autism assessments in under four weeks.
There are 187,000 children and young people waiting on average two and a half years for an NHS autism assessment. An early diagnosis of autism has been shown to improve a child’s quality of life and educational outcomes, and help parents better understand their child’s needs. Paloma Health will reduce long wait times for diagnoses, which cause further physical and mental health side effects, freeing up NHS resources to address other urgent healthcare demands.
Paloma Health accepts referrals from any NHS GP in England for children and young people’s autism assessments under the NHS “Right to Choose” scheme. As an official NHS provider, the service has no cost for families, and importantly Paloma’s autism diagnostic outcome reports are accepted by Local Authorities, whereas private autism assessments are often not accepted.
Paloma Health has worked with expert clinicians to redesign care pathways, making NHS services more person-centred and affordable. This will enable it to bring fast access to care for many more conditions including ADHD, dementia, allergy and dermatology. They are also developing software and several AI tools to support clinicians with administrative tasks, freeing up their time to spend with patients.
