At a recent presentation, a panel of speakers from a London NHS Trust highlighted the ways in which parts of the NHS are looking to innovate and improve patient outcomes. Given the importance of the NHS as one of the world's largest public healthcare systems, these innovations may have significant consequences for both the UK public, but also healthcare innovators in the UK and abroad.
- Patient data: A key theme to emerge is putting data in the hands of patients themselves. This can include real time access to their electronic medical records, or patients being more active participants in their treatment. This is part of growing trend, which we have discussed previously.
- Waiting lists & remote care: At a time of limited resources and growing waiting lists, a key concern is how to triage patients so that clinicians see the right half of the waiting list first. Wearables and remote devices can allow doctors to monitor patients, and identify when certain individuals need to be expedited.
- Digital exclusion: Of course a key concern remains digital exclusions, with certain communities less or unable to access these services – whether due to digital literacy, language or even having the financial resources to afford electricity. This is part of ensuring health services are properly communicating with their patient populations. In addition, such remote system will not be appropriate for all patients, particularly those with a complex mix of conditions.
- Data privacy & cyber security: Data privacy, patient consent and cyber security remain areas of potential legal risk. The speakers were keen to emphasise the importance of regulations and IT infrastructure. That said, these NHS hospitals are focused on creating innovation hubs and also looking to seed start-ups in the way increasing number of British universities are looking to.
- Commercialisation in the NHS: This builds on a number of recent announcements by the opposition Labour Party, which has placed significant emphasis on unlocking the commercial potential of the NHS. This includes boosting the number of clinical trials as well as R&D investment.
Although still behind the US in many respects, it does seem increasingly that different parts of the British healthcare ecosystem are focused on fostering innovation. The next question will be in terms of the ability to attract investment, and also whether it can use its single national public health system to outperform the US.
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