Reimagining innovation in a changing health system

A fundamental shift in health system thinking

The NHS 10 Year Plan and new Life Sciences strategy have signalled a shift towards prevention, neighbourhood working and digital technology. This shift will fundamentally change the provision of health, care and wellbeing services – reflecting the fact that the wider determinants of health drive 80% of population health outcomes. Regional health system strategies – ‘ICBs and their devolved counterparts’ – are evolving accordingly. ‘Success’ has now been redefined in terms of delivering against this 80% target number.

Wider government thinking is evolving too. Health is no longer viewed solely as a ‘cost centre’ but as a key to unlock workforce productivity and overall economic growth. Taken together, these developments mark a fundamental transformation in how health systems will be shaped and managed in the future.

Yesterday’s innovation models no longer meet today’s health system challenges

This transformation extends beyond service provision. The health innovation model itself is being disrupted. Traditionally, innovation has targeted clearly defined clinical needs which are addressed through linear processes of solution development, evidence generation and subsequent scale up. These ‘point solutions’ – as they are known – are intended to enhance existing ‘care pathways’.

Whole system challenges are very different indeed! With challenges such as obesity, mental health, health inequalities, the exact system challenge is often not fully understood – let alone the basis of a solution identified. As these challenges span many sectors and  stakeholders, they just cannot be addressed through siloed, linear innovation. A  collaborative, iterative and adaptive working approach is required from the outset.

Whole system innovation demands whole system collaboration

To develop practical solutions, regional health systems must convene diverse stakeholder partnerships – including citizens, health providers, local/mayoral authorities, devolved administrations, community bodies, pharmacies, industry innovators and academia. These collaboratives must stand side-by-side in co-developing solutions, testing them out in real world contexts and building an evidence base through lived experience.

For many years now, Innovate UK Business Connect and Ethos Partnership – a system design specialist – have been working together to explore new collaborative innovation models. Our joint learning is simple – the real challenge lies not in policy development but in implementation. It’s not just the ‘what’ but also the ‘how’.

Obesity prevention – a live test bed for collaborative innovation

The emerging new obesity management initiative is a timely case in point. While public attention focuses on new weight loss medications, regional health systems are tasked with helping prevent ill health in the first instance. A recent early-stage funding call – supporting ICBs in the design of obesity management pathways – reflects this whole system prevention challenge. This call offers not only the potential to fund cross sector collaboration but the opportunity to develop new skills and organisational capabilities, an innovative innovation model and effective delivery partnerships.

So far, so promising – but the real test lies ahead

Can regional health systems build the stakeholder collaboratives necessary to co-develop and successfully deliver these new obesity management pathway solutions?

Our hope in writing this opinion piece is to encourage these regional health systems, their stakeholders, industry innovators and indeed innovation agencies/funding bodies to reflect hard on these challenges and ask themselves the question:

How can we work together to reimagine the health innovation model – one fit for the future – in a 10 Year Plan?

We warmly encourage regional health systems, stakeholders and delivery partners to get in touch directly to explore how we can collaborate. Please contact John King at Ethos Partnership (john.king@ethos-partnership.com) or David Calder at Innovate UK Business Connect (david.calder@iukbc.org.uk) to start the conversation.