Technology doesn’t transform services. People do.
Problems Worth Solving brings you conversations with the leaders, practitioners, and radical thinkers reshaping health, care and support services. It's hosted by Sam Menter, co-founder of Healthia (www.healthia.services).
From transformation and AI to prevention and human-centred design, each episode uncovers the ideas and experiences behind lasting change.
Guests include NHS directors, policy shapers, entrepreneurs, clinicians, and designers — all united by a drive to solve complex problems.
Listen if you would like to understand how health systems can evolve to meet today’s pressures and tomorrow’s possibilities.
Dr Ross Dunne and Chris Larkin: Reimagining dementia diagnosis
Dr. Ross Dunne and Chris Larkin discuss reimagining dementia diagnosis and care through the innovative Manchester Brain Health Centre model.
1 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT
Dr Neil Churchill OBE: What the NHS can learn from charities to unlock neighbourhood health
Dr. Neil Churchill OBE, Director for People and Communities at NHS England, discusses how the NHS can learn from charities to improve neighborhood health by fostering deeper connections and reducing transactional relationships.
15 May 2026TRANSCRIPT
Tero Väänänen: Designing the NHS from the outside in
Host Alex Barker interviews Tero Väänänen, Head of Design at NHS England, about reframing healthcare design to address systemic gaps and optimize patient experience.
17 Mar 2026TRANSCRIPT
Dr Lia Ali: The fictional binary human
At a radiology AI conference, a clinician described a simple interface choice: an agree/disagree button for feeding back on AI diagnoses. It looked clean and efficient. But it assumed something fundamentally untrue: that clinicians experience a binary internal state when reviewing AI outputs. In reality, what they experience is uncertainty, context, fatigue and gut instinct. And when you force all of that into a binary choice, you don't just create a poor experience. You distort the data trai...
25 Feb 2026TRANSCRIPT
Dr Shanker Vijay: The wider consultation
GP Dr. Shanker Vijayadeva discusses rethinking the patient-GP relationship to address appointment pressures, offering insights from his dual role in clinical practice and digital transformation.
19 Jan 2026TRANSCRIPT
Helen Thomas: The human side of transformation
In this episode, Helen Thomas, Chief Executive of Digital Health and Care Wales, shares a rare and honest perspective on the human side of transformation. Drawing on more than 36 years in the NHS, including leading Wales’ digital response during covid, Helen reflects on what leadership really feels like at the sharp end of health and care – making difficult decisions, carrying responsibility, navigating uncertainty and still showing up for others. We explore why digital transformation is fund...
25 Nov 2025
Dr. David Chaney: Transforming diabetes care and effective NHS collaboration
Imagine starting every day with a calculation: what you eat, how you move, whether an unexpected walk or a stressful meeting will tip your blood sugars out of range. That daily mental load sets the stage for our conversation with Dr David Cheney of Diabetes UK, where we unpack the hidden frictions in diabetes care and the bright spots that are changing outcomes. One in five people in the UK are living with diabetes, prediabetes, or undiagnosed type 2, yet only around sixty percent receive th...
13 Oct 2025TRANSCRIPT
Prof. Jim McManus: Zooming out on prevention
Professor Jim McManus: Zooming out on prevention In this episode, we explore prevention in its widest sense — across systems, communities and everyday life. Professor Jim McManus, National Director of Health and Wellbeing at Public Health Wales, explains why prevention remains one of the toughest challenges in health and care. He shares how poverty, place and inequality still shape life expectancy in Wales, and why we must shift prevention from a “side programme” to the organising principle o...
5 Sept 2025TRANSCRIPT
Amber Vodegel: Designing for 150m global users
The way we design health apps is shaping who stays healthy and who gets left behind. In this conversation, Amber Vodegel, founder of the world’s largest pregnancy app, Pregnancy Plus, and now CEO of 28x, challenges how women’s health technology is built, funded, and trusted. Amber argues that health knowledge shouldn’t sit behind a paywall or be traded for personal data. With around 800 million people menstruating every day, access and trust matter. She’s designing a different path: on-device...
5 Aug 2025TRANSCRIPT
Rachel Hope: Designing for the NHS shift to digital and prevention
What if the word "solution" is generating more problems than it solves? In this revealing conversation, Rachel Hope, Director of Digital Prevention Services for the NHS, challenges our fundamental thinking about technology and transformation in healthcare. Rachel is building the architecture for a new kind of health service - one that's digital-first and prevention-focused. With stark statistics showing a 19-year gap in healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas, and 4...
30 Jun 2025TRANSCRIPT
Dr Malte Gerhold: What does it really take to deliver transformation?
Dr. Malte Gerhold, Director of Innovation and Improvement, discusses the critical implementation strategies required to transform promising ideas into lasting impact, focusing on healthcare and policy; this is an interview.
6 Jun 2025TRANSCRIPT
Charlotte Newman: Lean tech transforming respite for 35k carers
Charlotte Newman discusses how her tech-driven charity, Carefree, utilizes empty hotel rooms to provide respite for unpaid carers, addressing a critical social need in an interview.
20 May 2025TRANSCRIPT
Prof. Rachel Dunscombe: Your data could save lives
Imagine passing your health data down like a family heirloom. Not just a list of conditions, but a rich personal history — something that could help your children and grandchildren live longer, healthier lives. But that future depends on what we do now. Right now, governments are pouring billions into electronic health records. But if the data inside them is siloed, inaccessible, or locked in outdated formats — what are we really building? It’s a bit like building a library, but locking all ...
15 Apr 2025TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Katharine Halliday: Collaboration, leadership, AI and clinical judgment
Dr Katharine Halliday, President of the Royal College of Radiologists and a leading voice in UK radiology, joins host Sam Menter to discuss how collaboration, authentic leadership, and ground-up innovation drive meaningful change in complex healthcare systems. In this episode, they explore: Balancing AI with human expertise: Exploring how artificial intelligence can complement rather than replace clinical judgment.Collaboration as a catalyst for innovation: Breaking down silos and integratin...
25 Mar 2025TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Jonathan Gregory: Part 2, AI and groundbreaking research
In this two part episode, we talk to Dr. Jonathan Gregory, a former NHS cancer surgeon turned healthcare innovator, to explore the intersection of data, digital tools, AI, and patient-centred design in transforming cancer pathways. With over 20 years in frontline surgery and leadership roles, Jonathan now works. as clinical advisor for Macmillan Cancer Support, and in roles at Imperial College, and NHS innovation programmes to rethink how healthcare is delivered—from AI-powered end-of-treatme...
11 Mar 2025TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Jonathan Gregory: Part 1, transforming cancer pathways
In this two part episode, we talk to Dr. Jonathan Gregory, a former NHS cancer surgeon turned healthcare innovator, to explore the intersection of data, digital tools, AI, and patient-centred design in transforming cancer pathways. With over 20 years in frontline surgery and leadership roles, Jonathan now works. as clinical advisor for Macmillan Cancer Support, and in roles at Imperial College, and NHS innovation programmes to rethink how healthcare is delivered—from AI-powered end-of-treatme...
16 Jan 2025TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Videha Sharma: designing for prevention through genetic testing
Dr. Videha Sharma—NHS doctor, clinical innovation lead at the University of Manchester, and co-founder of Fava Health—joins host, Sam Menter from Healthia®, to explore how prevention-focused care, human-centered design, and genomic insights can reshape healthcare.Dr. Sharma offers a unique perspective on the power of tailoring treatments to an individual’s genetic profile, shedding light on how this can help reduce adverse drug reactions and improve patient outcomes. From designing better dig...
24 Nov 2024
Rochelle Gold: NHS user research, AI, collaboration and vampires
Rochelle Gold, NHS England's Head of User Research, shares actionable insights from user research that deliver better health outcomes and safer care by focusing on excluded groups and collaborative working.
20 Oct 2024
Dr. Lia Ali - the intersection of design and healthcare
Dr. Lia Ali—consultant psychiatrist and clinical advisor at NHS England’s Transformation Directorate—joins host, Sam Menter from Healthia®, to explore the intersection of healthcare, human-centered design, and digital innovation.Dr. Ali shares her unique insights on the bio-psycho-social model and how it aligns with user-centered design to create more personalised, effective health services. From using digital tools to improve patient outcomes, to exploring how the therapeutic relationship ev...
Inside a recent episode
Dr Ross Dunne and Chris Larkin: Reimagining dementia diagnosis
Published 18 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] So if 70% of people are getting diagnosed at the dementia stage, And the question is, what's happening to the other 30% of people who turn up at UK memory clinics? Those people have what we call mild cognitive impairment. And it's a rather unfortunate term, a bit of a historical term. And it refers to the stage before you really have difficulties with activities of daily living. So mild cognitive impairment is this historical term that we've rather inherited. And I think it's often a bit like having a pain in your head for six months and then going to a neurologist and him telling you have a headache. […]
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