Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 25.04.2025 
Who Are We
With 15 years working with the NHS, we’re trusted to be an innovative, experienced partner – creating solutions that benefit both healthcare professionals and patients.
Optimum Medical: Trusted provider of medical devices, with products in almost all NHS hospitals around the country.
Vyne: Our Dispensing Appliance Contractor (DAC) service, delivering products to patients all across the country.
The problem
The aim of a DAC is to work alongside the NHS to ensure patients receive their medical products effectively and efficiently. By listening to clinicians and patients we identified a problem with the process of how a traditional DAC works.
Clinicians, patients, and organisations all face their own frustrations with the way traditional DACs currently operate. Clinicians can experience wait times of up to 25 minutes on phone lines, which delays patient care. With services only available during standard business hours, accessing support out of hours is a challenge, and the lack of any way to track or trace patient orders means clinicians are often left in the dark.
As a patient, access isn’t always available at convenient times, the overall experience can feel quite poor, and without proper visibility, there’s even a risk of readmission – something that could often be avoided with better communication.
At an organisational level processes vary widely across regions, creating inconsistency, and the disconnect between acute and community care makes collaborative working difficult. Plus, while digital transformation is often talked about, real progress has been slow.
Vyne Online
That’s exactly why we launched our app, Vyne Online, to help bridge these gaps and move things forward in a way that actually works for clinicians, patients, and organisations alike.
The Vyne Online app makes managing medical devices simpler, faster, and more connected. Designed with both clinicians and patients in mind, it brings everything patients and clinicians need into one easy-to-use platform. Clinicians can register patients, place orders anytime from anywhere, and track progress every step of the way – ensuring patients get exactly what they need, when they need it.
Everything you need at your fingertips
Seamlessly register, order and track patients and products anytime, anywhere. Patients can take control and continue their orders directly through the app.
More care, less admin
Vyne Online saves an average of 7 minutes per patient versus a traditional telephone call. That’s more time to spend on effective patient care, providing better outcomes.
Better connected with Vyne
Standardise continence care across ICB’s with a simplified digital process, including tools to help align acute and community teams so no patient falls through the gaps
“Being a district nurse, we’re obviously quite busy and we don’t have time to sit in queues waiting on the phone to order equipment. So being able to access it at any time, especially on a weekend, to order there and then in the moment, makes it so much easier.“
J. Whetton, District Nurse
How did we do it?
Seven years ago, we began gathering feedback from clinicians and patients about what they were looking for in a DAC service. We kept hearing the same thing over and over: “Why isn’t there a digital option yet?” This frustration sparked the first outlines of Vyne Online. After testing out several prototypes, our Leeds-based team built the full Vyne Online platform in-house, with nurses and patients guiding every decision.
From day one we worked to NHS standards – meeting DTAC requirements, tracking our progress in the DSP Toolkit, and incorporating cybersecurity, risk management, and clinical safety into every sprint.
Since launch, that tight feedback loop has only grown stronger. We demo new features directly to NHS clinicians and the patients who use them, refine them fast, and roll our updates regularly. Vyne Online is still evolving and that ongoing effort is exactly what makes this award nomination so exciting.
Our nomination
We’re absolutely thrilled to have been nominated for the Stand-Out App category at the UK Digital Excellence Awards! It’s a real honour and a huge moment for our team, especially after all the hard work we’ve put into creating a solution that truly works for clinicians, patients, and organisations. From reducing long phone waits to improving visibility and supporting more joined-up care and health equity, Vyne Online was built to tackle the very real challenges that people using a DAC face every day. This nomination is a fantastic recognition of that effort – and we couldn’t be more excited!
