NHSX has announced that new funding of up to £500,000 is available for NHS tech projects that support home care.
Submissions for round two of the Digital Health Partnership Award, which focuses on technologies to enhance and enable people’s medical care at home, are now open, as of 1 November 2021, and will close on 10 December 2021.
The award has two phases and is seeking to scale digital products and services that support people to monitor their health remotely.
Projects can apply for financial support and backing of either up to £100,000, up to £250,000, or up to the maximum of £500,000.
In September, NHSX announced 14 projects as part of phase one of the funding scheme, including Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS FT and Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Trust for a respiratory remote monitoring programme and NHS Hampshire, Southampton and Isle of Wight CCG for a self-care and remote monitoring support programme in primary care.
NHSX states that bids need to ‘identify how they will deliver the opportunity at pace, with clear and sustainable outcomes and how each partner involved adds value to the bid’. This also includes detailing the number of patients in the target cohort and the impact it will have on them.
Other points that need to be considered are evidence of value and match funding or support, the purpose and value of partnerships, and the future of the project post its initial 12 months of support.
There is a particular emphasis on partnerships, with NHSX noting that a ‘key component of the bid’ is ‘demonstrating how local, regional or national partnerships will deliver the rapid scale, deployment and uptake of the solution’.
Examples to illustrate the scope of funding include optimising care pathways to scale existing services that support patients at home, through the use of digital tools, as well as interoperability of siloed solutions to improve the ‘sustainable exchange of patient data for safe clinical care’, integration of devices to help patients manage long-term conditions, and digital solutions that support workforce management resources and capacity in remote care.
All bids must be submitted by NHS organisations in England only and adhere to the Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC).
To find out more about the application process and eligibility, visit the dedicated NHSX page.
