Two pioneering, clinically-led digital health solutions aimed at addressing critical gaps in women’s health have been announced as winners of the Ripple Women’s Digital Health Challenge – a global innovation programme delivered by Cogniss in partnership with the Health Innovation Network and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The winning app ideas, developed by clinicians and researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Bath, focus on improving mental wellbeing for women experiencing significant unmet need. One solution supports women suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG), while the other is designed to help mothers caring for children with mental health or developmental challenges.
Supporting women affected by Hyperemesis Gravidarum
‘NVP Minds’, led by Associate Professor Fiona Challacombe, an academic and registered clinical psychologist at the University of Oxford, aims to support women experiencing Hyperemesis Gravidarum – a severe and debilitating pregnancy condition characterised by persistent nausea and vomiting.
HG affects around 30,000 pregnancies in the UK each year, with up to half of those affected reporting that they considered ending their pregnancy due to the profound physical and psychological impact of the condition.
The app will offer evidence-based psychological support, shaped by both clinical expertise and lived experience, working closely with the national charity Pregnancy Sickness Support.
Improving mental wellbeing for mothers caring for children
The second winning proposal, ‘HearHer’, has been developed by Dr Faith Martin, a clinical and health psychologist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Bath. The solution targets the mental wellbeing of more than two million mothers in the UK who are supporting children with mental health or developmental challenges.
This group is known to experience high levels of chronic stress and emotional exhaustion, often while waiting long periods for access to services such as Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) or Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) support. Despite the pressures they face, there is currently very limited structured psychological support available specifically for mothers themselves.
‘HearHer’ is designed to provide personalised, evidence-based psychological support during these critical gaps in care, helping mothers sustain their own wellbeing while caring for their children.
Supporting adoption into NHS pathways
Both solutions will be developed using the Cogniss no-code digital health platform and will receive bespoke support from the Health Innovation Network. This includes identifying pilot sites, supporting study design, generating evidence and carrying out economic evaluation, with the aim of enabling adoption into NHS pathways.
From February 2026, Professor Challacombe and Dr Martin will join a 12-month programme delivered by Cogniss, the Health Innovation Network and AWS, alongside a global cohort of innovators.
Alex Leach, Deputy Director of Programmes at Health Innovation West of England, said: “Women’s health has historically been under-researched and under-served, leading to real and persistent gaps in care. What makes these winning solutions so compelling is that they are grounded in frontline clinical insight and lived experience, while also being designed with NHS adoption in mind.
“Through our work across the Health Innovation Network, we are proud to support innovations like these that have the potential to improve outcomes for women, strengthen mental wellbeing and deliver scalable, evidence-based solutions for the health and care system.”
Women’s Health Minister Baroness Merron said: “Closing these gaps in women’s health is key. It is unacceptable that so many women are waiting too long for the care they need, and we are changing this through renewing the Women’s Health Strategy.
“What is so encouraging about the winning solutions is that they bring frontline clinical insight, lived experience and academic rigour together to address real, persistent gaps in care through digital solutions. I am excited to see these solutions coming to life and reaching women that need them.”
A national and global priority
The Women’s Digital Health Challenge 2025 was open to innovations addressing priorities including menopause, maternal and perinatal care, gynaecological cancers, fertility, mental health, pelvic and cardiovascular health, with a strong focus on improving health equity.
The winning solutions were selected by an expert judging panel featuring representatives from the World Health Organisation, the Scottish Government and Digital Health and Care Wales, based on their potential to address significant systemic gaps in care.
Leon Young, CEO of Cogniss, said: “There were too many exceptional submissions for this Challenge, all tackling urgent gaps in women’s health. Through Ripple, we are building the publishing and delivery infrastructure that enables innovators to focus on patients and outcomes, while we and our partners support the pathway into everyday NHS care.”
The Ripple Women’s Digital Health Challenge is being developed as a repeatable model to create a pipeline of digital health solutions that can be deployed at scale. By tackling long-standing structural gaps in women’s health, the programme also contributes to addressing the estimated £11 billion annual cost of women’s health neglect to the UK economy and the global health gap projected to cost US$1 trillion by 2040.
Posted on December 19, 2025
