Cera is using one of Europe’s largest home-healthcare datasets to shift care from reactive intervention to prevention. Its data and AI tools have helped halve avoidable hospitalisations, reduce patient falls by 20%, and deliver more than £1 billion in reported savings to the NHS, demonstrating that AI can address pressing healthcare challenges.
As populations age and healthcare systems face growing pressure, the ability to prevent illness rather than react to it is increasingly important. Cera is demonstrating how data and AI can help make that transition possible.
At the centre of Cera’s approach is a home-healthcare dataset containing more than 300 billion data points, generated through more than 2.5 million monthly patient visits by over 10,000 frontline staff. Cera uses this information to identify emerging health risks, support carers, and help older and vulnerable people remain healthier in their own homes.
From Reactive Care to Prevention
A major challenge was turning frontline care information into data capable of supporting preventative interventions. One issue was that notes about care naturally vary between individuals, making it difficult to identify patterns.
Cera developed bespoke natural language processing tools to standardise free-text information and convert it into structured data, feeding predictive tools to identify falls and other health risks with more than 80% accuracy.
Technology was designed around frontline adoption. Cera focused on making its digital tools intuitive for carers and nurses, providing more than one million hours of training to ensure technology supported care delivery, not creating additional administrative burdens.
The model combines data collected during everyday care with AI-driven prediction, enabling risks to be identified earlier and interventions to happen before patients require hospital treatment.
“Clear problem statement and great achievement of the outcomes in a really important area of healthcare. Good balance of AI and human impact” – Judges’ comments
Creating Measurable Social Impact
Cera’s achievement includes the impact its technology is having on patients, healthcare capacity, and the public purse. Key outcomes include:
- Avoidable hospitalisations halved through preventative interventions.
- 20% reduction in patient falls.
- More than £1 billion in savings to the NHS and Government.
- Predictive tools identifying health risks with more than 80% accuracy.
- A home-care model that is 10x more affordable and up to 15x more carbon-friendly than hospital care.
- Robotics increasing care capacity by 20% and productivity by up to 80%.
- AI Care Agents reducing administrative time by up to 85%.
- AI retention tools improving workforce retention by 22%.
Cera is applying AI to workforce capacity. Its AI Recruitment Agent, Ami, has recruited more than 1,300 carers and nurses since August 2025, while doubling hiring volumes and halving hiring times. Of recent starters, 34% were previously unemployed, including 16% who had experienced long-term economic inactivity.
Scaling the Impact
In 2026, Cera launched an AI Lab dedicated to identifying frontline care challenges, developing technology to address them, and licensing those innovations to governments, providers, and insurers.
Its data is being used to address the underrepresentation of older people in medical research. Through its Trials at Home programme, Cera is working with life sciences and healthcare partners to bring clinical research into people’s homes, reducing barriers such as travel and digital exclusion.
By combining frontline care delivery with data, AI, and robotics, Cera is demonstrating how technology can deliver impact beyond efficiency. Its approach is designed around better health outcomes, increased workforce capacity, lower costs, and reduced environmental impact. It shows what data and AI for good can mean in practice by using technology as a means of helping more people receive the care they need at home.
