“Innovation is crucial for enabling the NHS to increase the speed of diagnosis and deliver better outcomes for patients.”
– Department of Health and Social Care
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) HealthTech Research Centre in Emergency and Acute Care supports innovators – whether they are clinicians, academics or commercial companies – to generate the evidence required to progress their technologies through the innovation pipeline at a faster pace.
The NIHR funds, enables and delivers world-leading health and social care research that improves people’s health and wellbeing and promotes economic growth.
Why we do it:
According to the Office of National Statistics, by 2041 just over a quarter of the UK population (26 per cent) will be aged 65-years and over. This increasingly aging UK population brings more complex healthcare challenges and higher demand for services.
This challenge is greatest in the most socioeconomically deprived areas, where there is a greater need to improve outcomes and reduce inequalities. To support the resilience of the NHS to these changing demands there is an increased need for early and effective diagnostic tests. These changes, along with the aim of a personalised medicine approach to healthcare, have seen the diagnostics and MedTech market increase dramatically in recent years.
However, timescales from innovation to adoption in the health and care system can run into several years, and innovators often face many challenges when trying to generate the evidence required to meet the necessary regulatory guidelines and navigate the pathway to commercialisation and adoption in the NHS.
The NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Emergency and Acute Care exists to help you combat these challenges.
Our fundamental purpose is to transform emergency and acute care by developing and deploying new technologies for the detection, diagnosis and monitoring of disease, and embedding these technologies into the way that health and care services look after patients.
These technologies will benefit patients and the NHS by ensuring that diseases are diagnosed earlier, and that the appropriate treatments are provided sooner – so that patients get optimal care through planned services.
Specifically, we:
- Co-develop new medical devices for emergency and acute care alongside industry, academics, NHS clinicians, patients, and the public.
- Establish partnerships between industry, academics, clinicians, and the wider ecosystem, to progress innovations that improve patient care and efficiency within the NHS.
- Collaborate with innovators to achieve translation and demonstrate utility of new medical devices, diagnostics, and digital technologies in an emergency and acute setting.
We work with regulatory experts and organisations such as, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to ensure that our work maximises the chance of novel HealthTech solutions becoming adopted and benefitting patients. We help companies bring their technologies to market, and in doing so we bring investment into the Greater Manchester city-region and the wider UK.
Who we are:
The NIHR HeathTech Research Centre in Emergency and Acute Care is one of 14 NIHR HealthTech Research Centres (HRCs) across England funded by the NIHR to act as catalysts for innovation. HRCs are centres of excellence that support HealthTech development and evidence generation to enable the necessary approval and adoption of novel innovations into the health and care system to improve care.
We work collaboratively with the wider innovation landscape nationally to improve efficiencies translating research into improved practice. We aim to increase the system’s capacity to work collaboratively across industry, academia and the health and care system through training and support, contributing to regional and national economic growth.
NIHR HRC in Emergency and Acute Care is part of the NIHR and hosted by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT).
HRCs are centres of expertise which drive life-changing research into health technologies. They bring together patients, clinicians, researchers, commissioners and industry. The NIHR has awarded £42 million over five years to 14 HRCs across England.