Welcome to the Future-Health blog on Innovation, the struggle to develop and scale new technologies and the specifics of how to get into a difficult market.
We are based in the UK which means that all of the companies we work with are either trying to supply their technology, solutions or services into the NHS (National Health Service) OR if they are in Social Care to Local Authorities or sometimes direct to market.
This may sound easy until you realise that the NHS has only one thing that is National about it…… it’s title. To be totally fair it is provided Nationally BUT each locality has its own provider network, contracting, budget, objectives, procurement and well, it is complicated. An additional complication is neither NHS organisations or Local Authorities have no Front Door to knock on or anyone to guide you to where you need to be if you do manage to find a way in. There will be more on this in later blog articles as the route to market is a major stumbling block to most small companies. That and being perpetually asked to do a “pilot” implementation to prove what you have works in the setting you are targetting….. A GP friend who held a senior position in a CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) once quipped that they had more Pilots than BA. Funny! But less funny if you happen to be the company having to support all the pilots, then its horrifying.
On the flip side of thinking about scaling, if you are inside an orgnisation and have a good “idea” to improve the way things are done currently, cut down on admin, improve decision making or provide better intelligence to the teams you work with then we may be able to help with that as well. We often find intra-preneurs (employed and want to stay in employment but also want to improve things) who are desperate to change how things are done for the better…… we can help. We can help the managers that the intra-preneurs have probably been asking for help. And we can help departments or organisations set up innovation programmes to bring forward those good ideas and provide capacity to work on them.
There will be more content on this but if there is specific content you want to request please use the contact form on this website or use Twitter @FutureHealth18