Health Innovation Manchester has put out a call for healthcare companies and projects to apply for a share of its latest £150,000 funding opportunity.
The organisation, an academic health science centre which works with innovators to ‘discover, develop and deploy’ health solutions across Greater Manchester, is offering applicants the chance to secure up to £50,000 each.
Although the Momentum Fund, a programme that supports the introduction and adoption of innovations into the healthcare system, is asking for innovations which can benefit Greater Manchester and Eastern Cheshire, the funding is open to UK-wide and international applicants.
The Greater Manchester and Cheshire East areas are “to be used as the test bed for the solutions across social, primary, or secondary care” and the focus of the latest funding round is on solutions and innovations in key areas across imaging services, tracking and transporting samples, and ways for transferable skills to be shared throughout the NHS workforce.
Specifically, the call for innovations is asking for: a solution to help reduce requests which are of no clinical value in imaging services, known as “non-value adding” demand; innovative ways to track and transport pathology samples between point of collection and laboratory testing sites, with the aims of mitigating loss of samples, maintaining sample integrity, having efficient and timely receipts, providing audit trails, and ensuring compliance with legal requirements; plans for a system-wide collection of “skills and training updates” for staff from different organisations, so that staff could potentially be deployed across organisations.
Richard Deed, Associate Director, Industry at Health Innovation Manchester, said: “The Momentum Innovation Fund has proven to be a successful programme of support for companies developing innovative solutions to clinical priorities. For this call we are focusing on solutions to reduce demand on imaging, to innovate ways to track and transport pathology samples between point of collection and laboratory testing sites, and to enable system wide collection of skills and training updates, for staff from different organisations.
“Informed by key stakeholders from the Greater Manchester system, we believe these priorities represent true problem areas for the region. Through the Momentum Fund companies can access vital capital and support to help accelerate the delivery of their innovation, which means for our health and care system, solutions are brought forward to improve the delivery of care to our communities.”
Applications close on Monday 10 January 2022 – but interested parties can find out more about the application and shortlisting processes through Health Innovation Manchester’s dedicated page.
