When this editor first read about the scheme, his thoughts went to headlines like “NHS seeks oxymorons”, as that organisation is not noted for its cherishing of innovators. (Indeed at a recent event in Manchester I was told by a speech & language therapist who was saving the NHS two orders of magnitude in lower costs in helping stroke victims to swallow again by using remote consultation vs in-patient hospital stays that her boss had told her there was no place for her in the NHS.)
However it seems they seek innovators outside the NHS to enable it to adopt innovations at scale and pace: “NHS England is inviting healthcare pioneers from around the world to apply to develop and scale their tried and tested innovations across parts of the NHS.”
“Applicants should be experienced innovators in healthcare who are currently leading or working on new technologies, services and processes that have the potential to make a real difference to patient outcomes.”
Details of the NHS Innovation Accelerator Programme are here, and the Digital by Default news item, here.
Read this week’s Time magazine.
I nominate Steven Brill
I suggested a client might like to get involved in this and it turns out you need to pay nearly £400 to go to a conference and then £5000 to be part of the program ‘if’ selected….