Cohort for 2022 NHS Innovation Accelerator announced

The NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) has announced the 10 innovators who will receive support to introduce their solutions across England’s NHS over the next three years.

Each innovation and its representative innovator were selected through a robust, multi-stage application and assessment process involving a college of expert clinical, patient and commercial assessors.

This panel is drawn from a wide range of organisations, including NHS England and NHS Improvement, Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs), the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and The Health Foundation.

The announcement marks the seventh cohort since the NIA was launched in 2015. The selected innovations offer solutions to some of the most pressing needs of the NHS for the benefit of patients and staff.

The ten innovations and innovators which make up the 2022 cohort are:

• Abtrace, Umar Naeem Ahmad (CEO) – a digital health software solution for GP surgeries
• Dem Dx, Lorin Gresser (CEO and co-founder) – a CE marked AI-enhanced Clinical Reasoning Platform
• DigiBete, Maddie Julian (CEO) – a digital platform providing diabetes awareness, education, training and support to families at home
• getUbetter, Carey McClellan (CEO and clinical director) – an evidence-based digital self-management platform for all common musculoskeletal conditions
• Hear Glue Ear, Tamsin Holland Brown (founder) – an affordable solution for the most common type of hearing loss in childhood: glue ear
• Maxwell Plus, Tom White (COO and co-founder) – a breakthrough technology in diagnosing prostate cancer early
• The Real Birth Company, Zoe Wright (founder and director) – a multi-language birth preparation resource providing interactive, user friendly, animated, and easily accessible information to empower women
• Thalamos, Arden Tomison (founder and CEO) – Thalamos’ eMHA software provides an end-to-end digital pathway for the Mental Health Act
• UNEEG Medical, Chris Young (sales & marketing development manager) – the 24/7 EEG SubQ is a CE marked subcutaneous implant and external recorder solution that allows for continuous EEG monitoring day and night
• Written Medicine, Ghalib Khan (co–founder and director) – enables clinicians at the point of prescribing/dispensing/discharge to print instructions, warnings and information in bilingual or accessible formats

Dr Chris Laing, NHS Innovation Accelerator director and chief executive officer at UCLPartners, said: “The ten individuals successful in their bid to join the NHS Innovation Accelerator this year have gone through a rigorous assessment process and shown themselves to be ready to scale in England’s NHS.

“We are happy to welcome them to the NIA and look forward to supporting them in their innovation journey.”

The national accelerator is commissioned by the Accelerated Access Collaborative at NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHS E&I) and is delivered in partnership with the 15 AHSNs, hosted by UCLPartners, and chaired by Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS E&I.

One of the selected innovations for this year’s cohort is Dem Dx, a CE marked clinical reasoning platform which supports frontline healthcare practitioners’ clinical assessments at the first point of patient contact.

It helps meet the capacity and operational challenges faced by primary and acute care providers, while making considerable efficiencies across the whole patient care journey.

Lorin Gresser, chief executive at Dem Dx, said: “Dem Dx addresses one of the NHS’s most pressing issues: the shortage of frontline clinical staff. Dem Dx supports non-doctor frontline clinicians to take on more clinical responsibility, safely and with confidence, during that most critical first point of contact clinical assessment.  

“We are delighted to be selected as part of the NHS Innovation Accelerator 2022 cohort and look forward to working with our clinical partners to deploy our innovation at scale across the NHS.”

The NIA is one of a number of health technology accelerator programmes taking place this year. In January 2022, 21 companies, including Dem Dx, were selected for the 2022 DigitalHealth.London Accelerator programme, which aims to help transform the capital’s NHS and care system.

Also in January, TheHill, which is part of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, opened the application process for its Market Access Accelerator programme, with an aim similar to that of DigitalHealth.London’s accelerator.