Health Innovation North West Coast

About the Health Innovation Network

The Health Innovation Network is the innovation arm of the NHS and the collective voice of the 15 health innovation networks (HINs) across England.

We work with healthcare organisations and businesses to support the spread of all types of innovation within the NHS, from new technologies to ways of working and service improvements. We do this to improve services for patients, enable NHS efficiencies and support economic growth.

At a local level, we work to:

Identify innovation and improvements to specific problems, whether that be within a healthcare, academic or business setting, creating an innovation pipeline.
Empower innovators and those developing improvements to further their ideas and get them in front of the right people.
Advance the uptake and spread of innovation and improvements by delivering national programmes and initiatives within the NHS and social care.

At a national level, our goal is to bring individual health innovation networks together to create a collaborative network with an authoritative voice and greater impact, highlighting successes and sharing best practice so that we can achieve change on a wider scale.

NHS England commission

The NHS England Innovation, Research and Life Sciences commission of the Health Innovation Network sets out nationally mandated deliverables:

National Innovation Programmes
Rapid Uptake Products
Support for the adoption and spread of MedTech Funding Mandate products
National Innovation Pipeline
NHS Innovation Accelerator
Support for the NHS Innovation Service

In addition to these mandated deliverables, the HINs have received supplementary commissions to deliver other coordinated programmes:

National Patient Safety Improvement Programmes
Innovation in Health Inequalities Programme
NHS Insights Prioritisation Programme
Inclisiran
Blood Pressure Optimisation
Needs Assessment Service (part of the NHS Innovation Service)

HINs are integral to the continued success of core NHS innovator programmes such as the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI), the NHS Innovation Accelerator and the Clinical Entrepreneurs programme.

Office for Life Sciences commission

The unique role of the HINs means they bridge the gap between the NHS and industry, bringing the very best innovative solutions to the NHS and helping to create economic growth by harnessing the NHS investment.

The Health Innovation Network commission from the Government’s Office for Life Sciences (OLS) enables HINs to do this in a structured and methodical way, answering the needs of the health and care system and of innovators with ideas that match system challenges.

Deliverables are set out in the OLS Local Implementation Plans, which are agreed with each HIN and are focussed upon four themes: