“We still live in isolated silos.”
Angie Doshani, Janam App and Leicester Hospitals
“Understanding that you can learn from other specialties, from their errors or the good things they’ve done—that’s where my innovation bug came from,” says Professor Angie Doshani, consultant obstetrician at Leicester Hospitals and the brains behind JanamApp, a digital tool that supports South Asian women through pregnancy. “We still live in isolated silos,” she adds. “There’s so much amazing stuff happening around us, which we don’t know about because we don’t have those conversations.”
Doshani, who still works full time in the NHS, set up a community interest company to manage the development of JanamApp. “This is not about making money,” she says. “Everything we earn from licensing this app goes into development or community projects.”
Janam means ‘birth’, and the app offers “culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate” pregnancy and postnatal information in English and six South Asian languages. Trusts pay £5,000 for unlimited users—less than a pound per patient in Leicester, where the app was first launched. Hospitals in Derby, Burton and Chesterfield will launch the app this spring, and Manchester University trust is set to follow.
Early data shows improvements in staff efficiency, with less reliance on interpreters and shorter consultation times. Patient and staff satisfaction rates have improved, with 80% of patients saying they feel better informed after using the app.
“For me, it was all about patient empowerment,” Doshani says. “If you’ve got the right information, you’ll make the right choices, reduce anxiety and self-activate to look after yourself. It’s an investment in the future.”
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