The Story of Feedback PLC: Building the Digital Backbone of Modern Healthcare
Some of the most profound transformations start not with a master plan, but with seeing possibility where others see dead ends. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Thomas Oakley shared how he became CEO of a public company at 30 and led its evolution from a declining medical imaging business into a pioneering force in healthcare technology.
From Medical Imaging to Market Evolution
Feedback’s story began with two separate companies: Cambridge Computer imaging and Textrad. As Thomas explains, they started as “essentially a Pax company, which is a picture archiving and communication system. That’s really how hospitals store their radiology images. Think of it a bit like a digital library.”
The companies merged and reversed into a public company called Feedback PLC in 2014, continuing to focus on medical imaging and early-stage AI for image interpretation. But by 2019, when Thomas took the helm, the company was struggling against industry giants. “When I joined the company, it was very much in decline, looking at legacy products that didn’t have recurring revenue,” he recalls.
The Turning Point
Rather than competing head-on with established players like General Electric, Phillips, and Siemens, Thomas saw an opportunity to leverage their medical device certification in an entirely new direction. They began exploring how non-radiologists use medical images in their frontline work, leading to the creation of Bleeper.
“Bleeper, the best way of thinking about it is that it is a clinical grade version of WhatsApp,” Thomas explains, “which provides you with a secure, chatty environment that is patient specific… instead of having photos and videos, you have CT scans and MRIs, blood results and ECGs.”
From Local to Global Impact
The transformation opened doors to unexpected opportunities. During COVID, they developed capabilities allowing consultants to treat patients across international boundaries. Their technology even found its way to rural India through a partnership with AWS and Cure AI, enabling “AI-powered TB screening diagnosis within about 30 seconds of an x-ray being taken anywhere in India where you had 3G connectivity.”
This evolution wasn’t just about technology – it required fundamentally rethinking how to develop software in a regulated environment. As Thomas notes, “The medical device way of developing software is to risk, assess everything that you’re doing, anticipate risk and try and remove it from the product before you ever put it into the hands of clinicians.”
The Results
The impact has been transformative. The company has achieved 74% year-over-year growth for three years running, with an 89% increase in sales in their latest period. More importantly, they’ve demonstrated the ability to “reduce wait times in the NHS by 70% without needing any additional clinical staff at all, and in a way that actually releases cash back to that system.”
The Future Vision
Looking ahead, Thomas sees Feedback’s technology becoming “essentially a digital glue that pulls healthcare environments together and through party technologies can be deployed to a national or international healthcare audience.” Their platform is evolving into a system that can “completely remove the geographic parameters of care.”
The vision extends beyond just connecting doctors and patients. Thomas believes they can “very easily create a system where patients can come and go from any care setting, have that care setting add to their record, and be treated by specialists who could be anywhere in the world.”
This represents a fundamental shift in healthcare delivery – one where geography no longer limits access to expertise, and where technology enables better care without requiring more resources. It’s a vision born not from trying to disrupt healthcare, but from deeply understanding its constraints and turning them into opportunities for transformation.