Two primary care innovation projects have been selected for Surrey Heartlands ICB Test Bed Programme, which, supported by £1.3 million in non-recurrent funding, aims to deliver innovation in primary care, focusing on three key areas: inbound, outbound, and business processes.
One of the projects set to be rolled out across three PCNs is Anima, a digital coding platform designed to support primary care workflows, reportedly bringing “uniformity, scalability, and greater resilience to clinical coding processes” for practices.
Another of the projects awarded a place on the programme is Blinx Healthcare’s patient and care optimiser solution, which is said to “integrate directly with clinical systems at both practice and federation level, enabling enhanced patient management and care delivery at scale”.
Welcoming the news in a LinkedIn post, Andrew Roscoe, managing director at GP Health Partners, talked about how the projects would help transform the way practices work, driving efficiency in processes and improving outcomes for patients, adding: “This is a really exciting opportunity for our federation practices to work collaboratively with tools that are fit for the demands of modern primary care.”
Innovation in primary care and beyond
For a recent HTN Now panel discussion on GP practice and PCN improvement through innovation, HTN welcomed panellists Sabrina Khan, business practice manager at Parson Drove Surgery, and Dr Sheikh Mateen Ellahi (Mateen), GP and practice partner at ELM Tree Surgery and South Stockton Primary Care Network. Mateen shared a case study from his practice, detailing successes including reducing DNA rates, encouraging “substantial growth”, improving patient experience, and implementing a “hub model” to speed-up decision-making.
A panel discussion centred around patient engagement and communication tech looked at innovation in this space, with the help of experts including Jothi Vasan-O’Leary, medical information officer and outpatient clinical lead (GIRFT) at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton; Daniel Parkinson, digital IT project manager at Leeds Teaching Hospitals; Sally Mole, senior digital programme manager – digital portfolio delivery team at The Dudley Group; and Emma Stratful, chief operating officer at OX.DH.
Elsewhere, £3.9 million has been awarded to nine innovations that support the delivery of urgent & emergency care, through a SBRI Healthcare, an Accelerated Access Collaborative initiative, in partnership with the Health Innovation Network, funding programme. The funding aims to support innovations that scope health and care outside of hospitals, support reduced length of stay or improving discharge, or support the workforce.
The Scottish Government has shared details of a £6 million investment to be made as part of the Accelerated National Innovations Adoption (ANIA) programme, supporting innovation across conditions including type 2 diabetes and stroke, and for babies born with rare genetic conditions.
