PocDoc's Healthy Heart Check and Type 2 Diabetes Health Check are helping thousands of people across the UK understand their risk and take steps towards prevention.
PocDoc is now the number one diagnostic tool on the highstreet (excluding covid and pregnancy tests), available at Boots and Superdrug for £20.
Technologies like theirs are helping alleviate pressures on the NHS and could prevent up to one million heart attacks and strokes each year, saving the NHS £27 billion over the next decade.
PocDoc's manufacturing is based in the UK and has been a huge succcess, scaling capacity from 3,000 kits per month to 300,000 in 18 months.
The team are passionate about reaching people in all corners of the UK through initiatives such as Birmingham and Solihull's Cancer bus tour, partnering with employers to run workplace health programmes, and engaging festival-goers at Latitute festival.
We spoke to co-founders Steve Roest and Kiran Roest about their incredible success and their advice for other founders.
Hi Steve and Kiran, please tell us about your company - what is the story behind PocDoc and what is its mission?
In the UK, the NHS currently spends more on treating cardiovascular disease (CVD), renal and metabolic diseases than any other illness, with CVD alone costing the NHS £7.4 billion annually. These are all diseases that can be prevented with better detection and treatment. It was this realisation which led us and our team, who are incredible scientists, to think about how we could use technology to make screening easier, more accessible and convenient.
We have developed the world’s first smartphone-based platform that delivers a complete cardiovascular (CVD) health check (The Healthy Heart Check), including a lipid panel, BMI, heart age and 10-year risk score, in under 10 minutes. Using the same platform, we have also recently launched our world-first type 2 Diabetes Health Check, which helps people understand whether or not they are at risk of type 2 diabetes and helps them take steps to prevent it in the future.
Technologies like our Healthy Heart Check are estimated to prevent up to one million heart attacks and strokes each year and could save the NHS £27 billion over the next decade. PocDoc aims to alleviate these pressures on the NHS, supporting the three key shifts, by making preventative care truly accessible by combining digital-first delivery with clinically validated testing, delivered in community settings. By freeing up healthcare professionals to focus on the most critical cases, it helps ease pressure on health services.
Where and how is your innovation being used in the NHS/by patients?
PocDoc’s Healthy Heart Check is being rolled out across multiple NHS regions and community settings, making heart screening more accessible to thousands of people across the UK. Through SBRI Healthcare funding in collaboration with Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria, we delivered one of the largest and most diverse programmes, successfully screening over 5,000 patients through community testing with the PocDoc Healthy Heart Check.
Since then, we have scaled throughout the UK and have screened people with our technology in every part of the UK. We are now working in 35% of all NHS regions and our Healthy Heart Check is the number 1 diagnostic test on the high street (excluding covid and pregnancy tests). Specific recent examples in the NHS include:
In Cambridge and Peterborough, the Healthy Heart Check was deployed at the regions largest Primary Care Network to engage with serial non-responders to the NHS Health Check. From a single SMS message, PocDoc saw an 80% uptake in ordering the home test among patients who had never responded to a single invite to the NHS Health Check.
In Birmingham and Solihull, The Healthy Heart Check is a key part of the NHS Birmingham and Solihull ‘Cancer Bus Tour’, delivering 2,000 health checks annually in underserved areas. In West Yorkshire, the checks are being embedded into daily community life through universities, pharmacies, and local hubs to improve access and long-term outcomes.
Meanwhile, in Suffolk and North East Essex, PocDoc partnered with Latitude Festival to screen over 45,000 festival-goers, engaging a wider and more diverse audience in preventive healthcare. Through our partnership with South Leicestershire Medical Group, we’re delivering at-home testing across the region, and in the Black Country our test will be offered in a multi-day tour across several towns alongside other health checks.
Finally, in partnership with Health Innovation Wessex, PocDoc supports a region-wide effort to engage patients who typically miss traditional health checks. The results of each check can be shared in real time with the patient record and with the NHS app, enabling early identification of risk and timely intervention. We’ve partnered with employers to run workplace health programmes, reaching populations who rarely engage with routine checks. By decentralising testing, we’ve reduced barriers to access and are helping the NHS meet its CVD prevention goals. Our Diabetes Health Check is currently rolling out across the North East and North Cumbria, again in partnership with NENC, and will be available across the UK by the end of the year.
What are some of your company’s biggest achievements to date? What are you most proud of?
We’re incredibly proud of pioneering two world-firsts: a clinically validated smartphone-based full cholesterol test and type 2 diabetes test that can be deployed at scale. But there have been other major achievements along the way:
Basing our manufacturing in the UK and building our UK facility for our Healthy Heart Check. Scaling capacity from 3,000 kits per month to 300,000 in 18 months is another milestone. We’ve also secured NHS validation, VC investment, which includes backing from the NHS-anchored fund Meridian Health Ventures, and partnerships with leading pharmacies to take our Healthy Heart Check nationwide.
Most importantly, we’ve seen real-world impact: people who would never have gone to a GP have discovered they’re at risk and taken action. That’s why we exist. We’ve also built an outstanding multidisciplinary team - spanning science, technology, and clinical expertise - that shares our mission to revolutionise early disease detection.
Please tell us about your journey as entrepreneurs/innovators. What has been the best advice you have received?
As founders, our journey has been both challenging and exhilarating. We’ve worn many hats: scientists, fundraisers, customer service experts. One of the best pieces of advice we received was “speak to your customers constantly and build with them, not for them.” It shaped our co-design work with NHS teams and patients - we spent hundreds of hours with patients and clinicians before starting any development work, just listening to what their real problems were.
Tell us about your experience raising VC capital – DOs and DON’Ts
Our VC journey taught us key lessons:
DO articulate the size of the problem and your unique solution clearly. Investors back bold missions with real-world impact. Build relationships early - well before you need funding.
DON’T chase every investor; focus on those aligned with your sector and stage. Don’t overpromise timelines - credibility matters more than hype.
Securing backing from health-tech-focused funds that share our mission was critical. Transparency and data-driven milestones have helped us maintain investor trust.
What advice would you give to a healthcare entrepreneur just starting out about how to build a team and venture? Any career-defining moments that shaped you and PocDoc? Kiran - any advice you would give to the next generation of female leaders?
For new healthcare entrepreneurs, focus on assembling a mission-driven team. Find people who believe in the problem as much as the solution - skills can be taught, passion can’t. Career-defining moments include securing SBRI Healthcare funding, which gave us credibility and access, and our first NHS pilots, which proved our concept.
[Kiran]: As a female leader in STEM, I’d tell the next generation: don’t self-censor. Surround yourself with allies and mentors who amplify your voice. Diverse perspectives aren’t just “nice to have,” they make teams and products better.
"SBRI Healthcare funding was transformative - it de-risked innovation and gave us credibility with NHS stakeholders. Health Innovation Networks helped us connect with clinical champions and the Accelerated Access Collaborative provided pathways for adoption. For other founders, we’d recommend SBRI Healthcare, the NHS Innovation Accelerator, and joining founder networks like FemTech Lab or MedCity for mentoring and peer support."
Tell us about setbacks and overcoming them and any experience of gender bias
Start-up life is full of hurdles. For us, building an NHS-compliant, clinically validated platform while scaling manufacturing was a huge challenge. We overcame it by breaking the problem down, hiring domain experts, and staying flexible.
[Kiran]: Gender bias does exist - there are rooms where women have to prove their expertise more. What helps is allies who advocate for you, and building your own network of female founders. The ecosystem needs more inclusive funding practices and mentorship programmes for women.
What are your scaling ambitions and are there any key challenges or female leadership barriers?
We aim to screen millions annually, expand internationally, and broaden our platform to cover metabolic diseases. The key challenge is scaling responsibly while maintaining clinical quality and integration with healthcare systems.
[Kiran]: The biggest barrier to female leadership is often structural - lack of representation and support networks. Role models and visible success stories help break those patterns.
Our 3 key characteristics for a CEO to thrive today:
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Resilience Setbacks are inevitable; what matters is bouncing back
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Clarity of mission Keep your team and stakeholders aligned on the “why”
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Empathy Understanding your users, team, and partners builds trust and drives better decisions