We help business do business with the NHS
With the NHS facing unprecedented pressure, it is critical to support SMEs bringing proven solutions to the table that can immediately address priorities.
Accessing the NHS market requires a strategic approach for innovators developing technologies or who have market-ready products.
It can be a longer sales journey, but with a bigger pay off. This takes a unique blend of the right skills, resilience and collaboration to successfully navigate. Co-design with clinicians and patients to develop innovations that are most needed by patients presents a brilliant opportunity to build the best technology, and secure the evidence needed to support their procurement and purchasing.
Health Innovation North West Coast (HINWC) has been supporting health care innovators access the NHS for the past 10 years. We are embedded in the healthcare system. Many of our staff have decades of experience working within the NHS and deep networks of professional contacts, locally and nationally.
The NHS exists in a VUCA world (variable, uncertain, complex, ambiguous). Innovators/founders need help to navigate through the NHS successfully so their solutions can: save the NHS money, increase capacity, provide safer or better patient care, and save lives. HINWC are in a unique position to support founders to understand and navigate this complexity much faster.
HINWC support to navigate the NHS market
HINWC has provided support to thousands of innovators at all stages of product development – going on the journey from “bench to bedside”. We will help you understand the current healthcare landscape so you can successfully navigate the hurdles and sell your product successfully.
UK Government is signalling its priorities for the NHS for the next ten years, and this will present significant opportunities for life science businesses as market conditions pivot to fundamentally change the way the NHS provides care. This includes the three shifts: treatment to prevention, hospital care to community care, and transitioning from “analogue" to digital
Articulating and demonstrating how your innovation’s value proposition can help meet these shifts is key to making the case for the NHS to invest in procuring your solutions.
Case study
St Helens company Inovus Medical’s co-founder Elliot Street was a trainee surgeon who found it impossible to practise his skills because the large surgical simulators he needed to access were too expensive and very difficult to get time on. So, he and co-founder Jordan Van Flute, who had a background in engineering, created an affordable simulator – literally in a garage – that plugged this gap in the market. It was real ‘boffin in the back room’ stuff, but they now export simulators to over 80 countries. They knew there was a tangible need and a significant market opportunity.
Support programmes and funding opportunities
HINWC can: help founders build their profile, support market access, and provide showcasing opportunities for your innovations. We can help you access multiple programmes and accelerators that provide essential knowledge, and invaluable networking opportunities within the life sciences sector.
We have a very successful track record of supporting innovators/founders who have been selected for various national programmes such as fellowship in the NHS Innovation Accelerator, and the Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, which are some of the vehicles that can support scale up.
HINWC has just established its own Momentum accelerator programme to support the scale-up of companies who already have a local NHS foothold. We are proudly partnering with Praetura on this programme’s delivery. We are also one of the four northern Health Innovation Networks who jointly run the Digital North Accelerator.
There is a wide range of funding opportunities that are open to health and life science innovators. This is a fantastic system of support that de-risks invention and supports rapid evidence development, essential for driving market access. HINWC is adept at navigating the funding landscape and we are experienced in supporting companies to access finance.
If you want to know more about how we can support you, please get in touch with the Innovation and Industry Partnerships team at HINWC at info@healthinnovationnwc.nhs.uk.
