A national scheme to scale-up the best new ways of delivering patient care to reach every part of Scotland is being launched today at the NHS Scotland national conference in Aberdeen.

Under the scheme, ideas and approaches that meet a set of criteria for improved patient outcomes and experience, and which can be shown to work better for staff while being both financially and environmentally sustainable, will be scaled up across all NHS boards at "an accelerated pace".

The Accelerated National Innovation Adoption (ANIA) pathway is being led by the National Centre for Sustainable Delivery as part of a new ANIA Collaborative involving Digital Health and Care Scotland, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, NHS Education for Scotland, NHS National Services Scotland, Public Health Scotland and the Scottish Health and Industry Partnership.

Already new pathways for digital dermatology and heart failure are being evaluated under the ANIA programme alongside using artificial intelligence to read chest x-rays and a new scheduling tool for operating theatres.

To get their idea scaled up using the pathway, clinical and research teams will be asked to submit a referral form explaining how the innovation meets a need in patient care. They will also be expected to provide evidence of how well it has worked locally and suggest the impact it would have if rolled out across every health board.

Health Secretary, Humza Yousaf, says adopting and scaling-up technological innovation is central to renewing and transforming NHS Scotland:

“Using this approach to work collaboratively means we can identify, triage, develop and deliver transformative innovations at scale to benefit patients across NHS Scotland.

“This will be targeted at supporting NHS recovery alongside improved life expectancy, faster diagnosis, improved quality of life and reduced waiting times.”

Chief Executive of the NHS Golden Jubilee, Professor Jann Gardner, leads the work of the Centre for Sustainable Delivery and chairs of the ANIA Collaborative.

She says the new pathway will involve NHS boards, academia and industry working closely together:

“We can be greater than the sum of our parts, bringing patient centred innovation to our patients.

“The national Centre for Sustainable Delivery at NHS Golden Jubilee has been set up specifically to renew and transform healthcare services across NHS Scotland.

“As a national organisation which delivers care through collaboration, NHS Golden Jubilee is delighted to be working with our NHS Scotland and Scottish government colleagues in the ANIA Collaborative to positively impact on patient outcomes, provide faster access treatment, and ensure equal access to care.”

In a guide issued to mark its launch, the team behind ANIA say they will focus on ‘adoption of a small number of high impact, proven technological healthcare innovations’ across digital, HealthTech and diagnostics.

It says innovations should be at ‘mid/late-stage market readiness to be considered for ANIA’ and not at an early stage of development in R&D with a limited evidence base. Service and workforce innovations that do not include an innovative technology will not be considered.

Suppliers outside the NHS are encouraged to engage with the Scottish Health Industry Partnership and NHS Scotland Test Beds, make a submission through the Scotland Innovates portal and consider working with an NHS ‘sponsor’ who recognises the ‘significant transformation potential’ of an innovation who might be willing to champion it for consideration by the ANIA Collaborative.

 

Read more: Analysis: The ‘once for Scotland’ recovery plan; Collaboration will reimagine patient pathways; Insight: Mapping pathways to transform the NHS; “Vote of Confidence” in Scotland’s HealthTech Sector

 

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