NHS Innovation Accelerator returns to South West for roadshow visit
On 27 March the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) team visited the South West Academic Health Science Network (SW AHSN) at its Exeter office as part of their series of AHSN roadshows.
The roadshows aim to give both teams an opportunity to discuss the programme’s key outcomes so far and plans for the future. The NIA supports uptake and spread of proven, impactful innovations across England’s NHS, benefitting patients, populations and NHS staff. It is delivered in partnership with NHS England and England’s 15 AHSNs.
The NIA team last visited the South West at the SW AHSN’s Annual Conference in 2017, where they jointly delivered a workshop to delegates on the NIA, Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) Healthcare and the Innovation and Technology Tariff/ Payment. The session demonstrated how the different NHS England and AHSN-supported programmes speed up the spread and adoption of new innovations and technologies in the NHS to benefit patients.
Laura Boyd – Programme Manager, Rebekah Tailor – Communications Lead and Sophie Jenkins – Project Coordinator from the NIA team began the roadshow with an informal ‘meet and share’ lunch, where they showcased some of the innovations on the programme to the SW AHSN team. They then presented an overview of the NIA, future plans for the programme and also the outcomes of the recently launched NIA evaluation.
The independent evaluation of the NIA was conducted by the Institute for Employment Studies in partnership with researchers from York Health Economics Consortium (YHEC) and funded by The Health Foundation. The report highlights the impact of the NIA in encouraging greater uptake of healthcare innovations and bringing positive outcomes for patient and population benefit.
Laura Boyd, Programme Manager for the NIA, said: ‘Partnership working and collaboration with our AHSN delivery partners is fundamental to the success of the NIA. Our year one evaluation demonstrates that access to this wider national network, which includes SW AHSN, is one of the common conditions for supporting NIA Fellows to spread their innovations. It has been great to share the latest NIA updates with the SW AHSN team, and to receive their insightful feedback as we continue to grow and develop as a national programme.’
Stuart Monk, Director of Delivery, SW AHSN said: ‘It was fantastic to welcome the NIA team back to the South West to meet the team and talk about the programme in more detail. The NIA is integral to our work as an AHSN in spreading evidence-based innovations that benefit our patients and the NHS in our region. We look forward to continuing to work together to support the programme.’
This month, the programme published its first patient case study in the new series, ‘My Story’, which share experiences of people who have been involved in developing or have used NIA innovations. The first story is from Arlene and describes her experience of using ESCAPE-pain, a rehabilitation programme for patients with chronic joint pain.
Find out more information about the 37 innovations currently on the programme, in the new NIA brochure.
