Yesterday the Innovation Ecosystem Programme (IEP) published a report summarising its findings from the last 18 months, and makes a series of recommendations for the NHS to improve the adoption of innovation. The report was led by Roland Sinker CBE, National Director for Life Sciences, and the IEP Advisory Group made up of key health innovation system leaders, and aims to help inform the upcoming NHS 10-Year Plan, the Innovation and Adoption Strategy, and the Life Sciences Sector Plan.
The report highlights the challenges facing the NHS, including workforce shortages, health inequalities, rising demand for care, stretched resources, and financial constraints. It also acknowledges that despite pressures facing the NHS, the UK has the potential to be a global leader in healthcare innovation due its strong life sciences sector and access to valuable health data.
Some of the key findings from the report include:
Solid foundation for innovation: the NHS has a strong foundation in innovation, but it needs to expand and understand how emerging technologies can provide tools for a faster shift to prevention, early diagnosis and out of hospital care.
Focus on biggest priorities: the NHS needs to be less ‘supply side’ and focus on prioritising innovation and research support for areas of greatest need that align to the Government’s health and economic growth missions.
Collaboration is essential: the NHS cannot achieve its innovation goals alone, and there needs to be a better alignment of innovation and research infrastructure, orientated towards local systems and with easier gateways for partners to engage with the NHS.
Culture, skills and enablers: for the NHS to be successful in innovation, there needs to be a supportive culture, a skilled workforce, and appropriate enablers to better empower NHS staff on the ground to adopt innovation.
Long-term approach: the NHS has suffered from short-term approaches, and so success in implementing the report’s recommendations will require collective accountability and resourcing for 3 to 10 years.
In terms of next steps, the report outlines recommendations for the NHS to evolve the ecosystem, and encourage the adoption and scaling of innovation. These recommendations are grouped across four areas:
The innovation ecosystem and the NHS must be aligned to support the transformation of healthcare and the Government’s health and growth missions:
Integrate innovation within NHS priorities alongside education and research.
Focus on healthcare shifts such as digitalisation, prevention and homecare.
Consolidate funding and oversight to support innovation priorities with clearer accountability,
Use key performance indicators to track and incentivise innovation adoption.
Ensure accountability, oversight and leadership at all levels, which must be supported by standardised tools, policy and guidance for the key enablers of innovation testing and adoption:
Boost NHS leadership and capacity to test and adopt innovation, and develop missing expertise in collaboration with Health Innovation Network support.
Strengthen data access and information governance to prioritise testing and monitoring of innovation.
Standardise procurement and facilitate easy transfer of innovations across the NHS.
Build the skills, capabilities, capacity and culture required to prepare the NHS workforce for future ways of working:
Develop innovation skills frameworks and training across NHS roles.
Integrate innovation responsibilities into roles, and establish joint clinical fellowships with industry.
Foster a positive culture and understanding.
Programme partners should work together to mobilise major geographies behind current priorities:
Key localities should lead on priority innovations, collaborate with industry, and share best practices for scaling and implementation.
Build robust evaluation into innovation efforts to assess health, social and economic impacts.
Create networks to connect successful innovators with policymakers and others for shared learning and support.