ABHI Membership

Spreading innovation, improving health and stimulating economic growth

Dr Neville Young, Director of Enterprise and Innovation, Yorkshire & Humber AHSN, explains why innovation is vital to the future of the NHS, how the AHSN Network is working with NHS organisations and industry innovators to develop and spread new solutions and how being at MEDICA 2019 with the ABHI will help the Network drive these objectives forwards.

Innovation doesn’t just happen in the NHS, it’s part of a long (often too long) process and gaining access to the NHS and social care market can be a difficult and daunting prospect for businesses.

In January this year, NHS England published its Long Term Plan, which sets out how the NHS can respond to advances in medicine and changes in health and society needs so that in 10 years’ time we have a service fit for the future. This has a clear emphasis on research and innovation for patient benefit and highlights investment in the latest technology, digital health and cutting-edge treatments. Coupled with early detection and a renewed focus on prevention the plan aims to stop an estimated 85,000 premature deaths every year.

It’s accepted that the adoption of health innovation and increased use of technology is vital if the NHS is to continue to deliver sustainable services in the face of growing demands. The United Kingdom has an increasingly ageing population and so we need to come up with ideas and improvements that enable people to maintain their independence for as long as possible.

More and more people are living with long term conditions and again we need to be creative in supporting people to self-manage their care and reduce the need for increasingly regular visits to healthcare professionals.

There is no shortage of great ideas, both in the NHS and in industry but all too often we don’t make it easy for these ideas to be heard or find support so that they can reach their potential and spread to other organisations. We also have a wealth of talent and ideas within the UK’s strong life science industry. To create a sustainable NHS for the future we need to harness and build on this expertise so that health care delivery keeps pace with the way that the world is changing.

The 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) across England were established in 2012 by NHS England to spread the adoption of innovation at pace and scale. For the last six years, we’ve been heavily involved in helping our health and care sector and industry colleagues to work together to harness that innovation to improve patient care.

So, what are we doing to help?

We help NHS organisations to identify unmet needs and build links with companies who have high quality innovations that can be used to improve outcomes for patients.

The AHSN Network’s Innovation Exchange is enabling us to act as a broker between businesses and the NHS to simplify the process for both parties.

Funded by the Office for Life Sciences, the Innovation Exchange identifies, selects and supports the adoption of innovations with the potential to stimulate the economy and transform patients’ lives.

Another part of our role is to spread and embed innovations that have been identified as beneficial for the NHS through national programmes such as SBRI Healthcare, the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) and the Innovation Technology Payment (ITP). The Government is providing £2 million to give more patients access to proven innovations through the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC). We are delivering all these programmes right across the country.

Seven innovative technology areas were identified by the AAC that improve patients’ lives but are not currently available to everyone who could benefit. This first batch of ‘rapid uptake’ products includes a range of treatments for conditions identified as clinical priorities within the Long Term Plan such as cancer, heart disease and multiple sclerosis.

Across the AHSN Network, our shared ambition with the NHS is to ensure high quality, evidence-based solutions are put to work for patient benefit as quickly as possible enabling prevention of ill-health, earlier diagnosis, more effective treatments, better outcomes and faster recovery.

Ours is not a short-term challenge but our collective impact to date has been significant:

  • £87,976,755 of inward investment leveraged by the AHSNs
  • 499 jobs created by companies supported by the AHSNs
  • 178 strategic partnerships have been formed between AHSNs and companies.

These statistics were gathered as part of the AHSN Networks industry survey earlier this year.  The Network then published a MedTech Landscape Review, providing an essential guide for companies looking to successfully develop and roll out innovations in this complex and diverse industry.

As you can see, our thriving digital and medtech industry means there are plenty of reasons to feel positive about the future. Collaborative working across the NHS, industry and academia will be key to that.

The AHSN Network at MEDICA 2019

We’ll be hosting a small community of UK innovators as part of the ABHI UK Pavilion at MEDICA for the first time in 2019. We have three objectives for the show. Most importantly, we want to introduce five of the UKs exciting healthtech innovators to the international market. Secondly, we’re aiming to gain a better understanding of the needs of international health systems and organisations so that we can match them with NHS organisations and innovators that might have solutions for them. Finally, we expect to make first contact with innovators from outside the UK with a view to helping them understand how the AHSN Network can help them bring their solutions to the NHS.

Useful links

Dr Neville Young, Director of Enterprise and Innovation, Yorkshire & Humber AHSN

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