New clinical guidelines. New surveillance pathways. The same IT estate.

NHS clinical teams are under increasing pressure to implement evidence-based pathway changes quickly — yet the traditional route to new clinical software means 18-month procurement exercises, rigid systems that don't quite fit, and expensive change requests every time a protocol evolves.

ProtoFlex offers a different model: a rapid pilot that gets a working, configured system in front of your clinical team in weeks, not years.

Configuration Over Code

In healthcare, nothing is static. Yet too often, new software is delivered as a rigid product that enforces a process rather than supporting the people doing the work.

At ProtoFlex, our philosophy is simple: configuration over code.

We believe technology should fit the pathway, not the other way around. Our platform is built specifically to support the rapid configuration of clinical workflows — allowing us to sit down with clinical and patient co-designers and build systems that align precisely with real-world needs, local protocols, and evolving guidelines.

This delivers real advantages:

  • Perfect fit: You get a system that matches your team's actual processes. No workarounds, no enforced workflows that don't reflect clinical reality.
  • Agility: When guidelines change or a local protocol is updated, we configure the change — fast. No 18-month wait. No large bill for "a new release."
  • Co-designed from day one: Clinicians, nurses, community carers, and patients all shape the system before it goes live.

A live example: Teesside University COPD Trial

We are currently working with Teesside University not simply as a database supplier, but as a clinical systems partner. We configured a highly specific workflow that precisely supports their complex participant flow and intervention protocols — built collaboratively with their research team to reflect the realities of how their trial actually runs.

Why the Timing Matters Now

Several significant pathway changes are creating urgent demand for new digital infrastructure across NHS services:

IBD Colorectal Surveillance — BSG 2025 Guidelines

The British Society of Gastroenterology's 2025 update represents a fundamental shift in how IBD services must operate. The new guidelines move from fixed-interval surveillance to personalised, risk-stratified colonoscopy scheduling based on a multivariate risk calculator incorporating up to eight clinical factors.

Implementing this requires IT systems capable of:

  • Dynamic risk stratification — calculating and recalculating each patient's risk category as their clinical profile changes
  • Automated patient recall — identifying eligible IBD patients and triggering personalised reminders (currently only 25–74% of patients receive surveillance on schedule)
  • MDT coordination — mandatory multidisciplinary review for all dysplasia cases, with structured workflows and decision support
  • Real-time quality metrics — tracking KPIs including dysplasia detection rate, chromoendoscopy use, and bowel preparation quality against the new 70–90% concordance standards
  • Surveillance interval management — automatically calculating the correct post-colonoscopy interval for each patient based on findings, risk factors, and the new de-escalation criteria

Services that continue to manage IBD surveillance through spreadsheets or generic endoscopy software will find it increasingly difficult to demonstrate compliance with these standards.

Prostate PSA Surveillance

New NHS goals for non-cancer PSA monitoring are similarly creating structured follow-up requirements that generic systems handle poorly — regular PSA readings, threshold-triggered alerts, consultant review workflows, and long-term longitudinal tracking for cohorts that fall outside existing cancer pathways.

These are exactly the kinds of structured, data-intensive, protocol-driven pathways that ProtoFlex is built for.

What a Rapid Pilot Looks Like

A ProtoFlex pilot is not a proof-of-concept demo — it is a real, configured system built around your pathway:

  1. Discovery workshop — we map your existing pathway, data requirements, and team workflows with clinical and patient co-designers
  2. Rapid configuration — we build the configured system using the ProtoFlex platform, typically within 4–8 weeks
  3. Pilot go-live — your team uses the system with a defined cohort, with ProtoFlex support throughout
  4. Review and iterate — configuration changes based on real-world feedback, at speed

We provide the platform and the technical expertise. You provide the clinical knowledge. Together, we deliver a system that improves outcomes for your patients.

Ready to explore what a pilot could look like for your service?

Book a conversation with our team

Or explore the full ProtoFlex platform to see what we build on.