EXPERT VIEW
KAREN LIVINGSTONE
DIRECTOR OF PARTNERSHIPS AND INDUSTRY ENGAGEMENT FOR THE EASTERN
ACADEMIC HEALTH SCIENCE NETWORK (AHSN) AND THE NATIONAL DIRECTOR
FOR THE SMALL BUSINESS RESEARCH INITIATIVE – (SBRI) HEALTHCARE.
Innovation is essential to my
day-to-day work on behalf
of NHS England and the
Eastern AHSN. The pressure
on resources in the NHS will
only be addressed through
new ways of working and
innovative technologies and
approaches.
and Wealth’ which also set out the creation of the AHSNs regional networks of NHS organisations that are charged
with spreading best practice and innovation across the NHS
at the same time as growing economic value.
The AHSNs are keen to engage with businesses - we want
to hear from you so that we can support the NHS to improve
and bring new innovations to our work. The AHSNs are
actively supporting the SBRI Healthcare competitions and we
have a competition open now.
Along with the other AHSNs across England I lead the
SBRI, which is funded by NHS England and seeks to
accelerate the development of new technologies for
known healthcare need.
We are looking for innovations in our autumn 2014
competition in the clinical areas of:
The Office of Health Economics has recently
reviewed the SBRI Healthcare programme and
that assessment showed that we are supporting
businesses to grow - building new jobs and bringing
new innovations that improve care and could save the
NHS millions.
• telehealth/telecare for outpatient management
The SBRI programme identifies the challenges in
competition calls, assesses the best proposals
and then funds the company to develop the product
over a period of three years. The SBRI programme
was identified in the NHS plan ‘Innovation Health
• child and adolescent mental health
• diabetic foot ulcers
• neuro and brain injury, and imaging.
It is great that Medilink’s innovation service is supporting
companies in the North West and we are keen to see
any proposals from the Medilink members in our SBRI
competition - information is available on our website. And
if you want to find out more join us at our national showcase
event on 10th December in London.
For more information about the SBRI visit
www.sbrihealthcare.co.uk
@sbrihealthcare
Please note - the views being expressed are those of the author and not necessarily Medilink.
FRAZER-NASH MAPS PATIENT PATHWAY
New Medilink North West member Fraser-Nash, a multidisciplinary engineering consultancy,
has been mapping the dialysis patient experience for Nottingham University NHS Trust (NUH).
Working in collaboration with the City
Hospital site of NUH, the company was
tasked with mapping the ‘dialysis day’
of patients using the wards, in order to
improve their experience.
Firstly Frazer-Nash carried out an
information gathering activity based on
the Lines of Development framework
used by the UK MoD. Information
was collated about the operations,
infrastructure and interfaces of the
department using structured data
requests and interviews, to gain an
appreciation of the features of the
06
patients ‘dialysis pathway’ and how it
could be modelled.
to NUH’s department through greater
understanding and optimisation.
Patient questionnaires were also issued
to get an overview of their experiences.
For more information on Frazer-Nash
visit their website www.fnc.co.uk
L@Frazer_Nash
The second stage involved developing
a model that considered the patient
experience, including the process of
the dialysis day including transport,
equipment and staffing.
The overall outcome for this work was to
improve the patient experience; however
it is also expected that it will result in
far reaching long term improvements