We’re excited to announce that four SMEs have received awards from our 2024 East Midlands Health Innovation Fund to further accelerate health innovations ripe for NHS uptake that will yield benefits for the East Midlands region.

 The projects listed below will each receive up to £10,000 to further advance the adoption of their innovations into healthcare system partners:

Spirit Digital Ltd (Leicester) partnered with Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland (LLR) Integrated Care Board

Project: Translating the Clinitouch remote patient monitoring platform into additional languages to better serve LLR.

This project will translate the Clinitouch platform into Gujarati, Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu, to overcome digital exclusion in the LLR region and wider UK NHS services for patients speaking these languages as a mother tongue, who may not be able to use a remote patient monitoring solution that is only available in English.

Surgery Hero Ltd (London) partnered with Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH)

Project: Utilising digital prehabilitation and postoperative support to improve the experience and clinical outcomes of those undergoing elective hernia surgery at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Funding will evaluate a new use case for people on the elective waiting list at NUH with personalised perioperative care allowing Surgery Hero to scale up their evidenced backed innovation across the East Midlands region.

SurePulse Medical Ltd (Nottingham) partnered with University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust

Project: SurePulse VS adoption of wireless heart rate assessment technology into routine clinical care in newborn babies

SurePulse VS is a new approach to neonatal heart rate assessment and is approved for clinical use in the UK, Europe, and the USA. This funding will support the pathway toward NHS adoption and commercialisation through further NHS clinical evaluation and peer-reviewed publication. It will contribute to the generation of further Expert Opinion on the technology as a basis for a NICE Medical Technology Guidance review.

Tissue & Cell Technologies Ltd (Sheffield) partnered with Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

Project: Financial Benefits of Fat Freezing and Storage for Staged Breast Reconstructions.

Tissue & Cell Technologies have shown the clinical benefits of offering "fatbanking" to patients in a study carried out at Nottingham Breast Institute. This funding will be used to generate a budget impact model to demonstrate the benefits to the NHS, allowing NHS Trusts to optimise their treatment options for their patients by offering fat banking for patients.

Congratulations to all our successful applicants. We look forward to following their progress and impact.