Cera appoints four members to advisory board

Cera has strengthened its advisory board with the appointments of Lord Stewart Wood of Anfield, Hilary Evans, Benjamin Wegg-Prosser and Samantha Jones.

The four advisors will help guide Cera as it continues to evolve its services to meet the needs of the UK’s ageing population and relieve some of the pressure on the NHS.

Lord Wood brings 20 years’ experience working at senior levels in Westminster and Whitehall, including nine years as senior special advisor to Gordon Brown and five years as a senior advisor to Ed Miliband. He will advise Cera as it continues to work with government and the NHS.

Evans brings more than a decade’s experience working as chief executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, where she has overseen income growth and advanced the organisation’s research.

Wegg-Prosser is CEO and co-founder of advisory firm Global Counsel, and brings experience working across business, politics and the media, including two years as director of strategic communications for Tony Blair.

Jones brings experience working across both the public and private healthcare sectors, managing complex organisations across acute, community and primary care. She was appointed as COO of the Office of the Prime Minister in 2022, having previously been Boris Johnson’s expert advisor on NHS Transformation and Social Care.

Dr Ben Maruthappu, founder and CEO of Cera, said: ‘Lord Wood, Hilary, Benjamin and Samantha will support us in our mission to solve one of the major economic and societal challenges of our time: how to build a sustainable healthcare system of the future as our population ages and pressure on the NHS grows.

‘Their strategic advice and counsel will be invaluable as we work closely with government and the NHS to predict and prevent illness, reduce hospitalisations, shorten waiting times, and empower patients to live longer, healthier lives in their own homes.’

Cera’s technology aims to cut the need for hospitalisations by predicting health deteriorations and events such as falls, tracking symptoms, enabling carers and nurses to respond to high-risk alerts each day, and treating conditions like UTIs from the patients’ own homes.