Vayla Health Limited

NHS problem

Over 2 million UK adults live with frailty, costing the NHS around £6 billion a year. As more care moves out of hospital, frail patients remain particularly vulnerable after discharge and between community visits. Small changes — confusion, poor intake, medication problems, reduced mobility or failed care support — can escalate quickly, yet teams often have little visibility until a patient deteriorates or returns to urgent care. Routine telephone follow-up can help, but is time-intensive and difficult to deliver consistently with stretched teams. App- and device-led monitoring can also exclude older adults with cognitive, sensory, dexterity or digital-confidence barriers. 

Founder story

Vayla grew out of CEO Julia Warszewski’s earlier work supporting older adults with memory loss, where she saw how much ageing safely at home depends on somebody noticing small changes between formal care contacts. She joined forces with Jesse Murrell, a former Apple data and AI engineer, and Dr Hazhee Rasoul, an NHS doctor and Vayla’s Clinical Safety Officer, to explore whether voice AI could make that visibility scalable without excluding people who struggle with apps. After 100+ expert and 58 patient/carer interviews, the team focused Vayla on frailty recovery at home and the NHS shift towards proactive community care. 

The solution

Vayla Health is building voice-AI follow-up and engagement for frail older adults recovering or being supported at home. Vayla calls patients on their ordinary landline or mobile – there is no app, portal, wearable or new device – and conducts structured check-ins covering symptoms, medication, mobility, eating and drinking, confusion, confidence and whether planned support has arrived. Responses are structured into concise summaries so community frailty and reablement teams can focus human attention where it is most needed. Vayla does not diagnose, prescribe or replace clinical judgement; early clinical deployments are human-reviewed, with automation increasing only as safety and evidence allow. 

Impact

Expected impacts: To help NHS teams support more frail patients safely at home without proportionally increasing workforce. 

First, we expect to reduce the time clinicians spend on routine outbound calls, information capture and documentation. Our initial evaluation target is up to an 80% reduction in routine call-round time while maintaining clinical oversight and quality. 

Second, consistent follow-up should make deterioration, unmet needs and failed discharge support visible earlier, allowing teams to intervene while problems are still manageable in the community. At scale, we aim to reduce avoidable ED reattendance, readmissions and failed recovery episodes. 

Third, because Vayla works through an ordinary telephone, it can extend digitally enabled care to patients who struggle with apps, portals, wearables or connected devices. 

These are expected outcomes rather than proven clinical claims. To date, we have completed 150+ expert interviews, 58 patient and family-carer interviews, 32 older adult product testers, and 100+ synthetic clinical scenario calls. Early NHS evaluations will first measure safety, acceptability, call completion, escalation usefulness, staff time saved and workflow burden before testing utilisation outcomes at larger scale.