James Illman's Innovation Blog
Innovation and the NHS: the health entrepreneurs’ view
I’m currently in Boston with the government-backed Future Health Mission, which has hand-picked 20 of the UK’s brightest entrepreneur-led companies to fly to promote their cutting-edge medical products and devices.
As detailed in my first blog, there’s a range of products on offer from a device which can measure a patient’s health status simply by taking a sample of their breath to another which could knock seven weeks off the time it takes to establish whether or not a patient is reacting positively to anti-depressants.
Many of the ideas on show have the potential to save lives and cut substantial costs (although they may require investment in first instance).
The view amongst delegates on this trip is largely that the NHS could do far better at embracing innovative ideas and technology.
Criticisms centre on the well-trodden arguments including that the NHS remains entrenched in silos and that there is not enough collaboration between those setting budgets and those at the sharp end.
This may well be a message senior NHS managers already get.
So, what to do about it?
Zahid Latif is the Technology Strategy Board's head of healthcare.
The Government-funded body, which has a mission statement to accelerate economic growth by stimulating and supporting business-led innovation, spends £55m of its £300m annual budget on healthcare.
The TSB is one of the Future Health Mission's main backers.
I asked Mr Latif what he thought the NHS could be doing to better embrace technology and innovation.
Here’s a summary of his response:
- There needs to be a more collaborative approach between the NHS and industry
“If you look at pharmaceutical companies their historical play has always been adversarial with the NHS: ‘you will buy this drug at this price’ and the health provider trying to push that down.
“In the new world order where healthcare becomes a capped budget there has got to be a more collaborative approach around the development of products and services.”
- The Technology Strategy Board can broker some of those conversations
“People are starting to recognise the roll that we play in brokering some of those conversations. We do not a vested interest in a particular technology of approach. We ultimately looking for wealth creation for UK plc.”
- There needs to be a more robust direction
“We are constantly talking to the NHS and the Department for Health. The challenge is that no one has said that we need to deliver this by such and such a date.
“With low carbon vehicles [another work stream the TSB was heavily involved in] there was a target and we could say ‘how are we going to help get the sector to address that particular target’.”
- Entrepreneurs have to be realistic and think about how their product can integrate into the service
“You have got to have technology to fit the system. If the technology is too advanced the system is going to reject it and if the system is not prepared to adapt and change, the technology will never be adopted.”
On a mission to get tomorrow’s ideas today
The government-backed Future Health Mission has hand picked 20 of the UK’s brightest entrepreneur-led companies to fly out to Boston, Massachusetts, to promote their cutting-edge medical products and devices.
Products on offer vary hugely from a device which can measure a patient’s health status simply by taking a sample of their breath to another which could knock seven weeks off the time it takes to establish whether or not a patient is reacting positively to anti-depressants.
Delegates have enthused about the number of lives they say their products can save and the amount of money they could save health services both here and back in the UK.
Here’s a sample of what’s on offer:
1.The device that measures your health status via your breath
Anaxsys says its respiratory rate counter, respiR8, could cut post-operative drug induced respiratory depression, post operative cognitive impairment (dementia) and cardiac arrests.
It provides vital respiratory rate monitoring in a number of clinical environments including post-op and ICU, where patients are receiving oxogen through a mask, and emergency and paramedic use for early warning of patient deterioration.
2.A simple, quick test which could slash the 350,000 cases-a-year of sepsis (blood poisoning)
Sepsis kills more in the US than AIDS, prostate and breast cancer combined. Magnaparva Diagnostics says its rapid and simple to use near-patient diagnostic tool could save lives and costs. Sepsis costs the NHS more than £2bn-a-year.
3.The test that could reduce the recovery time for depression sufferers
It currently takes a clinician six to eight weeks to see whether or not an anti-depressant is having the desired impact.P1VITAL says its behavioural diagnostic, emotional test battery, could cut this to just seven days.
Quicker detection of how well patients are reacting to anti-depressants would reduce patient recovery time; health care costs and the wider economic costs associated with depression such as benefits and lost productivity at work.
4.A new product to prevent DVT which makers say is cheaper and more efficient than compression stockings
Sky Medical has brought the geko to Boston. Chief finance officer Jeff Hickman tells HSJ: “More people die from DVT in the UK than Aids, traffic accidents and breast cancer combined.
“DVT is the largest cause of preventable death in the world. geko triggers the body’s own natural mechanisms to improve lower limb blood flow and reduce venous stasis.” Five UK hospitals are currently trially geko, which retails at £17-20 per treatment
5.The personalised mobile phone long-term condition management system
Safe Patient Systems’ safe mobile care system is already well established in the UK.
It allows a clinician to prescribe a care plan to enable a patient to be monitored in their own home and enable pre-emptive intervention of the patient’s condition if it is at risk of worsening. With 20% of people in the UK suffer from a long term condition, better management could improve quality of life for a large number of people and save the NHS substantial sums.
Coming up soon on HSJ’s blog from the Future Health Mission in Boston, an exclusive interview with Technology Strategy Board’s Head of Healthcare, Zahid Latif.
