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HEALTH AND WEALTH IN SCOTLAND: A STATEMENT OF INTENT FOR INNOVATION IN HEALTH
Our Vision
Scotland is a world leading centre for innovation in health through partnership working between Government, NHSScotland, industry and the research community.
Context
This Statement of Intent is the result of the strong desire to make a pivotal difference to the Health and Wealth Agenda in Scotland. The Quality Strategy for the NHS in Scotland was launched in May 2010 with the core aim being: to deliver the highest quality healthcare services to people in Scotland and through this to ensure that NHSScotland is recognised by the people of Scotland as amongst the best in the world.
Last year the Scottish Life Sciences Strategy 2011: Creating Wealth, Promoting Health was launched. It noted: Our ambition is to double the economic contribution of Life Sciences to the Scottish economy by 2020. Part of the future vision presented is that the National Health Service (NHS) moves centre stage as a key customer for Scottish Life Sciences businesses and a pivotal stimulator of innovative products and services.
The Statement is the all-important bridge between these two strategies. At its heart is innovation: the invention, development, production and use of products, medicines, therapeutics, approaches and supporting services which create the opportunity to make major improvements to health and healthcare.
Scotland is very well placed to be an international centre for innovation in health with an integrated health service with major quality ambitions, a strong life sciences industry, excellent informatics, and first class universities and research capability. This Statement builds upon many successes for Scotland and opportunities to develop areas such as the interface between digital health and stratified medicines and assisted living.
Benefits
Through strong partnerships with industry, the NHS will encourage the development, marketing and adoption of products and medicines that are better matched to its needs, and which are evidence based, to make a bigger contribution to sustainable quality improvement. This will be of benefit to everyone:
· The people of Scotland will receive higher quality care and more effective interventions to improve health and wefsllbeing.
· The NHS will become more productive to make better use of public money.
· Life sciences businesses in Scotland will have a much better knowledge of the needs of NHSScotland for innovative solutions and gain better access to the NHS during product development,.
· Through improved product assessment and adoption processes Scottish life sciences businesses will be able to develop products that have stronger market potential because they are focussed upon the needs of health services in Scotland and beyond.
· Through a jointly developed understanding of future needs, risks to companies can be reduced, encouraging them to innovate and thereby increasing opportunities for business growth and increased employment opportunities.
Ambitions
This Statement has the following ambitions:
· NHSScotland will deliver world leading healthcare through close working with industry and research.
· NHSScotland will build strategic partnerships with life sciences businesses to make this happen.
· NHSScotland will extend its role as a driver for growth in the life sciences and related health industries and the wider economy in Scotland through more effective use of innovation.
· NHSScotland will work in concert with others to make sure that ‘Scotland PLC’ is competitive.
· Industry and research will pursue innovative solutions that address identified future requirements of NHSScotland.
Leadership
Leadership is fundamental to making it happen. A new Innovation Partnership Board (IPB) with senior leaders from life sciences businesses in Scotland, Government, NHSScotland and the research community will be established. Patient involvement will be integral to the work of this Board. The IPB will oversee the planning, prioritisation, delivery and future development of the Action Plan for Innovation in Health. The development of the IPB will be complemented and reinforced by an agreement to develop leadership roles around innovation in individual NHS Boards.
Partnership
NHSScotland has a strong desire to collaborate and develop partnerships with life sciences business in Scotland and beyond to deliver these ambitions. These partnerships will be based on equality, have the necessary commitment and authority to make a real difference, operate on the basis of trust, openness and transparency, and value for the people of Scotland. A variety of initial approaches to developing this partnership commitment will be overseen by the IPB.
One approach will be the establishment of a Strategic Engagement Group involving representatives from the Government, NHSScotland, the pharmaceutical industry and the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries (ABPI). This will build on the success of and continue the dialogue from the recent Short Life Working Group to Further Strengthen the Safe and Effective Use of New Medicines Across the NHS in Scotland.
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In addition a small number of Health Innovation Partnerships (HIPs) will be established. The HIPs will a means by which the NHS, industry and research bodies will collaborate closely on innovation and work to mutual benefit. These will be national bodies, but with clear routes into local NHS Boards, businesses and research bodies. They will reflect the needs of the different stakeholders of each sector with no expectation that there is a single model of a HIP.
Strategic Evidence
Innovation is in part about making sure that new products that have become available on the market – and existing products that can be used in new ways – which offer significant benefits to health and healthcare are taken up across NHSScotland. There are considerable mutual benefits for the NHS and industry to work together to share their strategic ambitions and drivers to help identify and then develop the next generation of innovative products and applications. It is necessary that the arrangements for assessment and evaluation of technologies and products support innovation while ensuring possible innovations deliver evidence based, quality services.
Progress
This Statement of Intent provides the strategy and direction, supported by practical actions to make change happen. A key commitment is the adoption of a set of visible and transparent metrics to demonstrate progress. Drawing upon these metrics, there will be a reinforcement of the existing performance management arrangements, particularly through the Annual Reviews undertaken by the Government with NHS Boards.
Procurement
NHS Procurement has worked extensively to make businesses aware of NHS procurement arrangements and selling to the NHS. There are several areas for further progress with procurement arrangements that can benefit the NHS, life science companies and Scotland as a whole. More clarity will be provided through further feedback and advice on procurement to companies – within what is possible under procuring a competitive solution which is legal, ethical and sustainable. Procurement services will be included as a service directly involved in new arrangements to support the introduction of proven technologies and solutions.
In line with a strategic outlook to product development, NHSScotland will additionally adopt developmental procurement. This will mean scanning the environment for future requirements and working with selected suppliers to identify and define solutions that meet the requirements of the NHS on a partnership basis as opposed to a competitive one. Developmental procurement will foster innovation.
The development of procurement in NHSScotland will be connected to efforts to extend opportunities for Scotland to promote, on a joint basis between the NHS and companies, high technology products and services globally, including research.
Research
Scotland has an enviable record in clinical and health services research in the NHS, Scotland’s Universities, research institutes, and businesses. Scotland is a world leader in many fields of clinical and health research such as regenerative medicine and translational medicine. It is essential that the importance of the contribution of research to the Health and Wealth agenda continues and develops. An early priority will be to guarantee that Scotland is able to exploit its unique position to use its electronic health records to support research. It is an explicit aim of NHSScotland to be a global leader in informatics healthcare design and delivery. The NHS will aim to collaborate with partnerships that are increasingly developing between Scottish universities and industry in life sciences.
Profile And Messaging
The follow through from this Statement of Intent must be wide engagement with all of those who have a contribution to make to innovation in health in Scotland. This includes front-line NHS staff, academia, researchers, leaders from larger companies and Small and Medium Sized Enterprises. The messages and ambitions from this Statement must be widely disseminated.
Action
The Statement of Intent is just that – about intentions. Actions must now follow. Through the partnership discussions that produced this Statement, a set of actions with clear deliverables have been agreed for the next 12 months. This will set the initial agenda of the Innovation Partnership Board. These actions are set out below
The Action Plan for Innovation and HealthNo / Leadership / Timescale
1 / The Innovation Partnership Board (IPB) with senior leaders from senior leaders from life sciences businesses in Scotland, Government, NHSScotland and the research community is established. / Immediate
2 / Each NHS Board will have a nominated senior executive with lead responsibility for innovation around life science and other technologies. / September 2012
3 / Each NHS Board will have a non-executive Board member with responsibility for assuring that the Board is addressing the Health and Wealth Agenda. / September 2012
4 / A national scheme of joint training, secondments and exchanges is introduced between industry and the NHS. / June 2013
Partnership
5 / Review teams are established to set out the ‘constitution’ and participating partners of the national Health Innovation Partnerships (HIPs) which will be the basis of partnership working and delivering innovation in the chosen sectors. / Immediate
6 / Each NHS Board has a senior person with overall responsibility for relationships with the HIPs / September 2012
7 / A new Strategic Engagement Group between the Scottish Government, NHSScotland, the Pharmaceutical Industry and ABPI will be established to continue the successful dialogue of the recent Short Life Working Group. This will be set up by the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer and be within the Scottish Government Health Directorate, Pharmacy and Medicines Division, providing a single point of contact for the pharmaceutical industry. / December 2012
8 / First HIPs commence operational. / January 2013
9 / Each Board, building on Introducing New Technologies Into The NHS In Scotland: A Practical Guide (the ‘MedTech RoadMap’), will produce a guide to working with the Board on technological and other innovations, and identify a senior person who will take responsibility for overseeing its relationship with the HIPs and other partnership arrangements. / February 2013
Strategic Evidence / Deadline
10 / A series of Developmental Technology Review Papers will be produced by a partnership of NHS bodies, industry and research bodies to provide ‘markers’ about future requirements for ‘health solutions’. / February 2013
11 / The NHS and industry will, through the Health Improvement Scotland technology appraisal and guidelines bodies, build on the joint working relationships to identify opportunities that appear to offer the greatest gains to NHSScotland to take these forward in a coordinated way. / Ongoing
12 / A review will be undertaken in partnership to look at the current arrangements for assessment, guidelines and evaluation to see if there are opportunities to make the arrangements more streamlined, and open and transparent, and to introduce a framework that would support the introduction of priority innovations on a more planned basis. / March 2013
Progress
13 / A national review group will be established with NHS, industry and research membership to identify a bundle of measures that can over the longer term help to assess that progress is being made with the Health And Wealth agenda. / Immediate
14 / Innovation becomes a topic for NHS Boards’ Annual Reviews with the Scottish Government. / May 2013
Procurement
15 / NHSScotland, when faced with products that do not sufficiently meet its needs will go to the market and ask companies to find or develop effective solutions with the possibility of their working in partnership to develop ideas through to products. (Includes use of mechanisms such as SBRI (a UK Technology Strategy Board initiative) to facilitate this.) / Immediate
16 / (Supported by the Developmental Technology Review Papers), the NHS will specify arrangements to undertake a strategic approach to procurement and adopt ‘developmental procurement’. / February 2013
17 / NHS National Procurement will work with the new partnership arrangements to put in place ways of providing feedback and advice to business on operational procurement issues that directly address the concerns of business. / April 2013
Research
18 / The Chief Scientist Office and eHealth Strategy Board will establish a Health Information Research Advisory Group for Scotland to consider what investments and action are necessary to maximise Scotland’s capability for research using electronic health records. / Immediate
19 / The Innovation Partnership Board will review the present position and make sure that the contribution of research (including the Universities) to the wider Health and Wealth Agenda is maximised through the Statement of Intent. / February 2013
Profile And Messaging
20 / The Innovation Partnership Board will develop a communications strategy to raise the profile in the NHS and the business and research communities of Scotland’s ambitions on innovation in health / January 2013
21 / The First annual Scottish Health Technology And Innovations Fair open to all partners and all sectors held. / April 2013
22 / An annual national awards scheme to recognise successful contributions to all aspects innovation and technology in health is established. / April 2013
Scotland is a world leading centre for innovation in health