The humans behind it

Built by the clinicians and engineers who lived the placement crisis.

Two careers, one conviction. Clinical insight to know exactly what's broken. Engineering rigour to build something that scales.

Ellie has more than a decade as a registered dietitian. She has supervised placements across nine UK universities and launched the University of East Anglia's first MSc Dietetics pre-registration programme, watching brilliant students lose weeks to placement slots that didn't exist, and clinicians burn out supervising them.

David has spent the same decade architecting enterprise-scale cloud systems at Nordcloud (an IBM Company), with prior years at Microsoft and Fujitsu. The kind of secure, regulated infrastructure that healthcare data demands.

We saw two clear challenges holding students and universities back: too few opportunities for realistic simulation, and a growing shortage of clinical placements. SimHealth is the platform we built to bridge that gap, giving every healthcare student the hands-on experience they need to thrive in clinical practice.

Eleanor Coles, Co-Founder & CEO
9UK universities supervised across
2UK dietetic programmes led as course director
10+years as a registered dietitian
Co-Founder & CEO

Eleanor Coles

A registered dietitian with more than a decade in practice across the NHS, private practice, and higher education. At the University of East Anglia she launched the university's first MSc Dietetics pre-registration programme and served as Practice Education Lead.

She has delivered placements across nine UK universities, watching brilliant students lose weeks waiting for a placement slot, and clinicians burn out supervising them. The team kept designing workarounds: longer cohorts, split placements, simulation role-play. None of it scaled. None of it could. The system is structurally short.

SimHealth is the tool she wishes she'd had in practice.

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David Coles, Co-Founder & CTO
Co-Founder & CTO

David Coles

David has spent a decade architecting cloud systems where the data is regulated and the audit trail matters. Cyber security and identity at Microsoft, cloud-native modernisation at Fujitsu, then UK Cluster CTO at Nordcloud (an IBM Company), leading cloud transformation for financial services. Today he holds two CTO seats: Datanomy Technologies, where he leads engineering for finance teams, and SimHealth.

SimHealth started as something he and Ellie built together. He committed to it for two reasons. The mission: giving the next generation of healthcare workers somewhere safe to practise the cases they will meet on the ward. And the engineering puzzle that genuinely excites him: making AI feel human. Real enough that students and professionals build a genuine human connection with the patient, the kind they will need at the bedside. The platform under that has to meet the data and security standards healthcare demands.

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Dr Maggie Adnett, Medical Advisor
Medical Advisor

Dr Maggie Adnett

Maggie is a GP with a specialist interest in medical education. She provides independent clinical oversight for SimHealth, ensuring every scenario reflects the realities of clinical practice.

Her teaching career spans undergraduate and postgraduate medicine, mentoring, and educational supervision, with a focus on supporting students into safe, confident independent practice.

Why trust us

How we hold the line on quality.

Clinically reviewed

Every scenario is reviewed by registered clinicians before it reaches a student.

Independent oversight

Dr Maggie Adnett, GP and medical educator, signs off every scenario for clinical realism.

Professional-body aligned

Mapped to BDA, HCPC, and RCN standards. BDA recognises up to 30% of placement hours via simulation; RCN around 26%.

NHS tariff eligible

Universities in England can invoice the NHS directly through the England training tariff.

Educator-controlled

Programme leads keep full control over content, sequence, timing, and assessment. Nothing is auto-published.

Privacy-first by design

Schema-per-tenant data isolation, JWT-based auth, no cross-institution data sharing.

Our values

The principles that guide everything we do.

Excellence in Education

Delivering high-quality, evidence-based training that meets or exceeds professional standards.

Innovation with Purpose

Developing technology solutions that solve real-world problems and create meaningful impact.

Professional Integrity

Maintaining rigorous compliance with healthcare education requirements and ethical standards.

Collaborative Growth

Working closely with stakeholders to continuously improve and expand our solution.

Patient-centred Focus

Ensuring all simulation experiences ultimately contribute to improved patient care.

Impact

Every decision we make is guided by its potential to positively impact healthcare education and patient outcomes.

Get started

Explore our placement solutions.

Join the UK university programmes already using SimHealth to expand placement capacity and lift consistency across every cohort. Free to universities through NHS funding.

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Frequently asked questions

With 50+ cases to choose from you can practice your knowledge & consultation skills in specialisms such as weight management, oral nutrition support, dementia care, enteral nutrition, gastroenterology and much more!

SimHealth was built for scalable training to maximise training opportunities through practicing clinical skills. We support a variety of dietetic specialisms, nutritional interventions for allied healthcare professionals and in 2026 will be launching in nursing. SimHealth fits with programmes of any size, adapting to the needs of the university. With no technical set up or downloads, you can embed SimHealth quickly and seamlessly into existing curricula and training modules. Alternatively, we offer SimHealth as a placement opportunity contributing to practice based learning hours.

A student subscription gives students access to the platform to undertake consultations or caseloads allocated & managed by the university or institution. A placement opportunity is hosted by SimHealth. We provide an immersive educational experience to mimic clinical situations but in a safe, controlled environment. Our practice educators host students for a set number of weeks (usually 2 - 8 weeks), providing students with PBL opportunities to meet their learning outcomes on placement through practice of their clinical skills, decision-making, team work and theory based activities, all without patient risk.

Whilst many of our customers are universities, we are perfectly positioned to work other institutions. With a diverse range of learning paths we could embed SimHealth into placement settings, freeing clinician time and maximising student experience through gaining practice in a specialism prior to seeing real patients. In 2026 we will also be launching our post-registration CPD learning paths which would be suitable for band 5 and above, contributing to your CPD hours and learning.

For Universities based in England, we proudly accept the NHS England training tariff. For Universities in Scotland, Wales & Ireland or worldwide or other institutions (e.g. NHS) please get in touch for more information on how we can support your learners.

There is significant evidence for the benefits of using simulation in healthcare training. Simulated placements can provide effective training in core skills, and this is recognised by many professional bodies allowing innovative training models like simulation to be used for up to 30% of required placement hours (~26% Royal College of Nursing, 30% British Dietetic Association).

Our founder, Ellie, and primary educators are all registered health professions, with many having experience in higher education. All have extensive experience in student training across various UK universities, the NHS or in private practice. For our placement opportunities, we are actively involved in educational audits for all Universities we work with. We also try to share our audits where appropriate across Universities.

Absolutely, we can align consultations or caseloads with your speciality and create custom learning paths for your university or institution.