Our story starts with our Founder
Jonathan King
Founder, CEO and NHS Doctor
BSc (Hons), MBBS (Hons.), MRCP, PGCert, FHEA
Jon is a father to two mixed race daughters and was brought up in a multi-lingual home. Ever since the age of 15, having been admitted to hospital for the first time due to his chronic illness, Jon knew he wanted to be a doctor. Well supported by his family, Jon overcame many health setbacks to graduate from University College London Medical School in 2011 having also studied Biology at University College London prior to this.
Having been a patient with chronic disease his whole life, Jon has witnessed healthcare from both sides of the table and focussed his clinical practice on improving patient journeys. Being from a multicultural background, it had always struck him how different access to and equity of healthcare is for patients of different classes and with different levels of English proficiency.
In 2012 Jon travelled to India to work in the slums of Mumbai as a doctor helping new born babies with severe nutritional deficiencies, a stark reminder to Jon of the inequalities that exist. Along with Jon's own experience as a patient, this acted as an anchor in his professional life where he would go on to practice medicine in way by which the patient journey was always at the centre of his decisions.
This philosophy came to a head during the COVID-19 pandemic. Having taken a sabbatical in January of 2020 to live with his wife in New York City to be a stay at home dad, Jon lived through the pandemic in one of the global epicentres, shielding 24 hours a day. As the pandemic unfolded it became clearer than ever that a clear disparity in healthcare existed across the globe and Jon began dedicating himself to finding a solution.
Our Foundation
It took Jon two years to clarify how he would solve this problem. Multiple meetings with healthcare professionals, software developers and other HealthTech Founders during this time helped focus Jon's mission and in 2022, Medicalease Ltd. was founded. Immediately we started working on our first e-solution, funded by a grant awarded by the charity Guts UK and pharmaceutical company Dr. Falk who partner to annually recognise the most innovative projects in the field of gastroenterology.
Initially aimed at bridging the healthcare inequity that exists between those who are fluent in English and those who are not, it became apparent to everyone at Medicalease that our first innovation also had the power to reduce the cost of translation services for the NHS, reduce the carbon emissions of the NHS and reduce the number of hospital procedures that are not attended by patients. Missed appointments not only cost the NHS millions of pounds a year but also delay the diagnosis and treatment of patients on the waiting lists who would have attended such appointments.
Having performed preliminary research to illustrate the need for our first solution, we have now developed a proof-of-concept app. Working closely with Guts UK and patient groups we are rigorously testing our product with appropriate focus groups to ensure that the very individuals our product is meant to serve will have a direct hand in shaping its development.
Our Future
By 2030, Medicalease wants to be in every NHS Trust and in hospitals across the world to reduce and eventually eradicate inequity in healthcare for those with language or accessibility needs.
Language barriers have long been the cause of healthcare inequity. In 2022, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a paper calling for the inequity in healthcare provision and poor healthcare outcomes for migrants and refugees to be treated as a global health priority.
Numerous complex causes exist for this inequity. One, however, is language.
We do not believe that language should be the cause of healthcare barriers in a world with so much access to great technology. We aim to respond to this call by the WHO to treat this global health crisis and whilst doing so, expand our solutions to those with accessibility barriers as well.
We are dedicated to developing numerous e-solutions which harness the power of technology, including artificial intelligence (AI) and natural-language processing (NLP), to ensure these barriers no longer equate to healthcare barriers.
We are actively fundraising to help rapidly expand our innovations. If you want to find out more about what we are doing, are interested in having us build a solution that is right for you or considering an investment, please get in touch.
We are excited to speak with everyone who shares the same passion for healthcare as we do as we continue to fight to ensure healthcare equity for all.