Supporting innovation in the NHS

The NHS has always been accused of being slow to adopt innovation. However, the Department of Heath and NHS England are now moving towards innovation as a route to deliver the services that patients require. Discussing the barriers that need to be overcome to speed up innovation adoption, Richard Deed, innovation unit manager at TRUSTECH said: “To achieve this goal, a wholesale culture change is needed across the NHS. This will take time, and needs to be both topdown and bottom-up. Nurses, doctors, managers and Trust chief executives all need to understand that innovation can lead to change for the better and that it is something to engage with and celebrate. “There needs to be more of an incentive to create a widespread culture of innovation across health services. Asking staff to meet more targets can be something of a disincentive – innovation should be closely linked to existing programmes, such as CQUIN, which generates financial benefits for Trusts that are able to deliver care more efficiently and improve quality and performance.” Established in 2001, TRUSTECH was one of the first of a network of NHS innovation Hubs. Its aim is to provide an innovation management service for NHS organisations within the North West region and a consultancy and project management service for companies and other organisations throughout the UK and beyond. TRUSTECH has a range of partners including universities, medtech and biotech incubators, company networks, and the Health Innovations Alliance. It also has strong links with professional advisers in the legal and financial sector, and commercial funders and venture capital investors. Richard Deed continues: “To really embed innovation into the clinical setting, hospitals need to devote time and resources to identifying, developing and implementing new ideas, technologies and services. This may be in the form of small grants or other financial resources, or by providing extra people to free up the time staff need to develop or adopt innovation. It is also important to educate and inform staff at every level so that if they have a good idea they know who in their organisation, to talk to about it.” Richard Deed goes on to suggest that one of the biggest factors that could really drive NHS innovation is the better use of IT. He said: “Unless NHS staff and innovators can access a reliable IT infrastructure and a responsive support system, novel software and improvements brought about by IT systems that would allow, for example, patient monitoring in a community rather than a hospital setting, simply will not work.”

 IT innovation

Offering an example to demonstrate the difference that an innovative IT development can make when it is put into action, Richard Deed said: “Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust carried out a limited trial of the Patientrack patient monitoring system for use in critical care. The Trust looked at evidence from the trial and the business case. Thereafter the Trust, procured the system and subsequently invested in setting up a team to adopt the system. Two years later, it is well on with rolling out the product across all six of its hospitals. The support of IT staff within the Trust was critical to the success of this project... the same applies throughout the NHS. Equally, having NHS IT experts involved early on with a company can mean money is not wasted on complex technology solutions which will not work in the real world of the NHS.” NHS England, which formally came into being earlier this year, is now putting innovation at the centre of its remit and will be running the Innovation Fellows Programme as well as working closely with the newly formed Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) to translate academic research and clinical innovation into patient care. “It is very early days, but NHS England will be a key player in driving the development and adoption of innovation across the healthcare sector,” said Richard Deed. With the Greater Manchester AHSN, TRUSTECH is helping to better engage industry with the NHS to increase the level of partnership and collaboration, which is an essential step to improve the development of solutions to the needs of the NHS. “Pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment/device manufacturers are keen to engage with the innovation agenda,” he said. “However, frontline NHS staff do not often have time to spare to sit and discuss clinical needs and priorities with them and this is where the AHSNs – together with local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) – come in. AHSNs are planned to work with their regional health community to identify areas of unmet need and set up joint working partnerships with the commercial sector. TRUSTECH is already working with the NW Coast AHSN on a number of projects, and with a large CCG to identify the particular healthcare needs of its local population. “It is an exciting time to be involved with innovation, and our team is playing an important role in linking up a wide range of players from across the new NHS landscape,” said Richard Deed. TRUSTECH has helped to develop a diverse range of ideas – from the relatively simple and straightforward – such as a midwife’s suggestion for a book to dispel common breastfeeding myths; and a training package on how to deal with people in emotional distress – through to sophisticated medical devices and diagnostic tests. Sometimes it is just a question of providing advice on intellectual property, while other ideas require more in-depth assessment and research. What is required can be decided by answering some important questions such as whether the product or service relates to clinical needs? Is there any clinical evidence to back it up? What is the size of the market and how many sales would it be likely to make? Is there something already on the market that does the same thing? Does a prototype need to be built? Is there any aspect of the intellectual property that can be protected and if so does it need a patent filing? For those with an idea, the first step should be to check whether there is already a similar product on the market. Then it is necessary to gather evidence to support the idea. Clinical evidence is really important in convincing the NHS and investors of its value. Although TRUSTECH can help arrange clinical evaluations having initial clinical evidence is still valuable.