Startup Profile: Pando

By Mirianna la Grasta | @mirilagrasta

Founded in 2016 by Barney Gilbert, Lydia Yarlott and Philip Mundy, Pando offers an app for teamwork and secure collaboration within the health and social care sector. The clinical messaging app is part of the NHS Apps Library and is free to all NHS staff. It is currently being used by more than 45,000 professionals across several NHS hospitals and healthcare providers. Pando currently connects primary, secondary and community care teams within the NHS, and allows staff to communicate within and between wards and exchange both images and sensitive information in a secure way.

The platform, which is fully encrypted and GDPR-compliant, also comes with a task-management feature that enables professionals to create patient and task lists. These can, too, be shared with colleagues and updated when necessary.

The Story of Pando

Formerly known as “Forward Health,” Pando went through a rebrand in January 2020, when the startup announced a £3.8 million funding round from investment firm Skip Capital. Forward was founded in 2016 by two doctors and a serial entrepreneur who realised that communication in hospitals was chaotic and ineffective. By starting Forward, the three co-founders wanted to offer a better and safer tool to share information within the health and social care sector.

The goal of the app would be to improve patient care and increase morale among NHS teams. With “Forward” becoming more and more popular with NHS staff, and creating new ways of communicating between teams, the three founders realised that the app could be more than a messaging tool. Today, Pando is not just a messaging app, but a more comprehensive networking platform that holds healthcare professionals together and provides them with a digital space to share sensitive information.

How Pando Works

Pando allows healthcare teams to communicate securely and share sensitive information however they want to. The app verifies the identity of all users to make sure every bit of information is shared securely with the right people. As opposed to other teamwork messaging apps, Pando is specifically created for people working in health and social care, with features designed with the health professional in mind. These include image capturing and patient lists.

The app is protected by a PIN code and has zero time limit on data storage, to enable its users to access information at any time and wherever they want to. Pando currently offers both individual and group messaging features, broadcast messaging and forums, an “image capture & export” option, interactive patient lists and notes and a work-life balance feature, to make sure carers switch off completely from work when they’re home.