NHS groups in the East Midlands are today (Thursday 26 March) being invited to put themselves forward to partner up with top innovators from around the world to trial new technologies, digital services and other innovations with the potential to deliver big benefits to patients and taxpayers alike.

NHS England and the Government are calling for expressions of interest from innovators from any sector in the UK and overseas who want to test their ideas to deliver health services in better ways at scale, and in a real clinical setting.

Working in partnership with the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network, the programme will identify up to five 'test beds' that will receive national support to implement high potential innovations that respond to local clinical needs. These test beds may include combinations of GPs, hospitals, community health teams, social care and the voluntary sector, and will range from small groups to whole areas.

Innovators from industry, the voluntary sector or the NHS itself are being asked to put forward new technologies that, working in combination with innovations in how health and care services are delivered, could offer better outcomes for patients as well as better value for taxpayers.

For example, this could mean equipping patients with wearable technology, combined with new patterns of working for clinical and nursing staff which aim to help patients manage long-term conditions, address any potential problems as early as possible, and help keep them out of hospital.

NHS England Chief Executive Simon Stevens said: "The NHS' ambition is to become the best place on the planet to test new combinations of innovations that produce clear payoffs for patients and taxpayers. We'll never be the system that pays the highest prices, we could be the health service most open to new and better ways of providing care."

Rachel Munton, Chair of the network of AHSNs and Manager Director of the EMAHSN said: "The 15 AHSNs have been at the forefront of supporting and spreading new ideas, new technologies and new ways of improving services for patients since they were formed.

"We are therefore delighted to play our part in supporting local health and care systems to take advantage of this exciting opportunity to partner with innovators and take radical steps towards modernising and improving the services they offer to patients. We also look forward to being able to take the learning and the success stories from test beds to other systems across the NHS in the coming years."

The application process opens today, and closes on 29 May; further information on the scheme and submitting bids can be found at www.england.nhs.uk/testbeds

ENDS

Notes

More information about the programme can be found at www.england.nhs.uk/testbeds and you can read our FAQs here.

The test beds programme is being jointly run by NHS England, the Department of Health, the Government Office for Science and Innovate UK, and in association with Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs).

AHSNs were established in May 2013 to help co-ordinate the adoption and spread of innovation with clinical research and trials, informatics, education, and healthcare delivery. They seek to develop solutions to healthcare problems and get existing solutions spread more quickly by building strong relationships with their regional scientific and academic communities and industry.

The 15 designated AHSNs are:

• East Midlands
• Eastern
• Greater Manchester
• North East and North Cumbria
• North West Coast
• Imperial College Health Partners
• Oxford
• South London
• South West Peninsula
• Kent, Surrey and Sussex
• UCL Partners
• Wessex
• West Midlands
• West of England
• Yorkshire and Humber

The core tenets of the vision for test beds are:

• To enhance the nation's health and wellbeing, by preventing disease and poor health in people in the first case and restoring them to autonomous and fulfilling lives as quickly as possible when they do fall ill
• To improve health and care services, resulting in better patient outcomes and experience of care, which can be evidenced
• To improve integration between primary, secondary and social care
• To identify ways of reducing health and social care costs at scale
• To increase the NHS' learning capability, accelerating its ability to conduct pragmatic yet robust trials initially in limited sites, and spreading those with the greatest benefits more widely
• To lay the foundations for boosting economic growth, aiming to lead the world in the development and implementation of digital care systems, innovative care pathways and precision medicine
• To pioneer new models of reimbursement on the basis of proven effectiveness of reducing disease costs