NHS England publishes recommendations for innovation adoption to help transform health and care

Life sciences drives both health improvement and wealth creation across the UK, generating £108 billion in turnover in FY21/22. However, the follow-through to widespread adoption of health innovation remains variable despite the UK being the second largest global spender on health research and development.

The Innovation Ecosystem Programme (IEP) began in Summer 2023 to identify how to streamline research, development and adoption of innovations that could make the NHS a global leader. Through stakeholder engagement, detailed analysis and collaborative working, the programme has developed recommendations to help transform health and care in the UK while supporting economic growth.

The Programme's report sets out recommendations to transform how the NHS develops and adopts healthcare innovations. It highlights the NHS's unique position to become a global leader in testing and implementing new technologies through its scale, integration with the UK's thriving life sciences sector, and access to comprehensive health data. 

The report calls for urgent action to build stronger partnerships between the NHS and suppliers. Key recommendations include: 

• setting clear national priorities
• standardising innovation processes
• building workforce capabilities, and 
• sharing best practices across the system. 

Health Innovation Wessex has played a significant role in the development of these recommendations, working with NHS England's Innovation, Research, Life Sciences and Strategy (IRLSS) team, along with Health Innovation West of England and Health Innovation South West to convene and deliver a series of interactive learning collaboratives to engage networks and local systems in rapidly contributing their insights to the blueprint.  

During October 2024 we partnered again with the IRLSS team and Health Innovation West of England to give colleagues from the health innovation network, integrated care board, provider and academic communities a unique opportunity to hear more about the progress of the Innovation Ecosystem Programme and its recommendations. The convening power of health innovation networks and our facilitation expertise allowed ICB partners to engage deeply with their localities to feed back and iterate their insights.

Cheryl Davies, Senior Programme Manager leading on this work for Health Innovation Wessex, said "It is fantastic to see that the final report represents the voice of colleagues working within innovation, who created a vibrant community of people wanting to work together to build partnerships and help the NHS lead the way in adopting healthcare innovations. This collective voice flows through this Programme and will be pivotal in realising and embedding the recommendations."

Read the full report https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/the-innovation-ecosystem-programme/