We’re really fortunate actually because we’ve sort of designed and built this what
we call innovation hub which is a space, it’s actually in one of the hospitals in Sheffield,
but in itself it’s quite interesting because I think it’s sort of created a different
dynamic for how we’re working and as you’ll see on that slide, you know, alongside other
colleagues up here, we link into sort of a clinical network of people helping us with
the programme, a patient network, the innovators that we’re working with and we’re working
with fourteen innovator companies at the moment and a sort of an expertise network which we’re
reaching out sort of nationally and actually globally in terms of whose doing this, where
they’re doing this, what can we learn from it.
In terms of the space that we’ve got as a programme, we’re really fortunate because
we are using it to sort of test things and simulate and try things out before we sort
of launch full scale onto sort of real world, which is proving really valuable in terms
of being able to pick up things really quite quickly and find out some of the issues that
we may not have thought about to begin with that we need to tackle and tackle before we
put it into that first GP practice, or we try it in a first clinic.
And I think it has quite a different feel about it in terms of people, we bring patients
into that space, we bring clinicians into this space and I just say to you, it’s an
interesting sort of dynamic, the environment sometimes, when you’re working in programmes
of kind of where you physically are.
And this has come up, certainly yesterday and again this morning, we are part of a formal
evaluation process to test the programme which is about the outcomes, it’s about the economic
evaluation, but certainly as a programme we’ve recognised there’s other things that we
need to evaluate and we need to evaluate as we go along, and it is about the project and
the value proposition and being really clear about the innovators that we work with, what
are the products and the value that they will bring to the programme, to the patients, to
the outcomes that we’re trying to achieve.
We’ve had to do and like I say, we’ve been able to do this in our innovation hub
in terms of looking at the technology of, we might be starting small scale, but what
would happen if we scaled up quickly, how can you respond to that?
Are we absolutely clear on some of the quality standards?
The other thing that’s been really interesting, which links to the clinical environment as
well, was some of the technology, you know are we ready for it?
And you know, if you’re working in a GP practice which you found that not all GP practices
have Wi-Fi, what are we actually going to do about that because this is a real way of
testing.
So, you know, and it happens, so it’s really interesting in being able to kind of think
about that and how do you evaluate that?
Come on to the clinical environment; again this has been really interesting in terms
of almost the ideal; where would you want to do things ideally?
Then recognising we’ve got twelve months in reality to implement this and what is the
best clinical environment and at the moment we’ve got a combination of doing things
in primary care, in secondary care and in care homes.
Very different clinical environments for each of those and again we’re learning a lot.
Not just in terms of from a technical perspective and how people are using devices and adapting
to change, but also it’s giving insight into almost daily life in some of the clinical
environment.
Certainly, care homes which has been really interesting in terms of the reality of members
of staff working in a care home and the pressure that they’re under, and that’s been really,
really valuable learning.
Not just to say this with the deployment of the technology.
And as you’d imagine, we’re looking at then overall what are the benefits.
So, we’ve got formal evaluation, but we’re trying to look beyond that in terms of what
are the benefits in terms of, and methodology and approach.
How we can replication this, how do you scale up what we’re trying to do and just a little
bit, the final thing I’ll say about this is that what we’ve done as well as a team,
within that sort of approach to putting this into place, is to work through a kind of very
sort of rapid deployment process which starts with what are the problems we’re trying
to solve?
And that has been the starting point for every project that we’ve done.
It’s like what are the problems we’re trying to solve here?
And how do you quickly go through from innovator companies that may want to work with us and
put in an expression of interest, how do you go through very almost rapid due diligence
and what is the right due diligence when you’re trying to do something at speed, through to
how do you test before you launch in the real world.
Like I say, we’ve done that in our sort of lab.
How do you get the right deployment plan in place to do something at speed which as many
of us in this room may know, is really, really difficult because you are, it’s not just
about the what, but it is about the trust, it is about the behaviours, it is about the
culture change.
And then I think for ourselves, we’re coming through to that and how do you best disseminate
in terms of what we’re finding, the learning, the kind of capacity and capability that we’re
building as a team that the test bed has a certain life cycle at the moment, but how
do you then build that into other teams, into the STP areas, into the countable care systems
in terms of an approach and a methodology that hopefully will build from the momentum
that we’re gathering now.