Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage innovation by National Health Service clinicians.

Innovation Health and Wealth, published in 2011, set out a number of steps to encourage innovation which the National Health Service is pursuing. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Implementation Collaborative supports faster and more consistent access to NICE recommended medicines, treatments and technologies. Academic Health Science Networks are working with their local health systems to support the effective adoption of innovation.

Building on this, we are working closely with NHS England, industry and other key stakeholders to develop the Innovation Scorecard to make it a more effective tool for identifying unjustified variation in uptake of innovative treatments in the NHS. Following the vision set out in the Five Year Forward View, we are also working with NHS England to support the development of ‘test beds’, which will offer the opportunity to test technologies at scale in a real world setting.

We have also announced the Innovative Medicines and Medical Technologies review, which will make recommendations to accelerate the overall pathway, including adoption and diffusion of innovation in the NHS.