Promoting innovation in healthcare

Innovation is a key part of the Department of Health’s Quality Innovation Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) programme introduced to improve services for patients and generate the £20 billion efficiency savings required by the NHS to help the government tackle our national debt. It can not only help increase NHS Trusts’ productivity but also improve their finances. An NHS Confederation report, Leading Innovation, recommended that NHS Trusts should constantly look at new practices and technologies to save money and drive efficiency. The report found that the barriers to introducing innovation included excessive bureaucracy, lack of access to budgets to support the costs of implementing innovation, and a climate of risk-aversion. To help speed up access to the latest equipment and products, NHS Supply Chain worked with the NHS National Innovation Centre (NIC) to develop a new process. The end result was “Innovation Scorecard” – an online portal that encourages suppliers of all sizes to register market-ready products for contract consideration. It works alongside the NIC’s own pre-market Scorecard to ensure that the widest ranges of innovations are available to the NHS. “Innovation Scorecard provides us with a mechanism to assess whether new products are innovative by looking at their concept, value and capacity,” said Elaine Alsop, executive buyer at NHS Supply Chain. “The end result gives the NHS access to the latest products and technological advances to benefit patient care.”

 Since NHS Supply Chain launched Innovation Scorecard a year ago, it has received around 100 applications and introduced a wide array of products aimed at improving healthcare and providing enhanced patient care. Product applications are thoroughly assessed to ensure that prospective products deliver the best value to the NHS and are truly innovative. During the evaluation process additional clinical feedback may be obtained via NHS Supply Chain’s Task Force programme. Task Force members have specialist knowledge in a specific clinical area and provide expert insight into clinical requirements during the procurement process, enabling NHS Supply Chain to provide the best value products to the NHS. If, after this process, the product is deemed to be innovative and add value to the NHS, the product will be made available on a pilot contract to test adoption, and the full EU tender process will be undertaken in due course. Each successful product receives three months worth of marketing from NHS Supply Chain and is placed on the “New Product Showcase”, which is accessible from their website and is also emailed to NHS Supply Chain customers. The following innovations have been introduced through the Innovation Scorecard.

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