Business support drives economic growth

Health Innovation North West Coast has helped create or safeguard 59 jobs while securing £17.7m of investment for companies in our region in the last year.

Support for innovators is one of our key functions in driving the adoption and spread of health and care innovations that benefit our communities.

That support includes identifying funding opportunities for companies with innovations that have the potential to improve patient outcomes, as well as directing innovators to decision-makers in the health and care system.

The Health Innovation North West Coast commercial team also offers real-world validation of innovations and help with realising their benefit to the wider system. The team also offers training opportunities and the chance to showcase innovations to the widest possible audience. You can read more about this support on our website.

Deyrick Allen is Commercial Director of Sustainable Smart Technologies, a company with bases in Rawtenstall in Lancashire and Daresbury near Warrington. It specialises in advanced monitoring solutions that help organisations reduce costs, lower emissions and drive sustainability.

He said the Health Innovation North West Coast commercial team had helped his company create two jobs and safeguard a further seven in the last year.

He said the team had helped with product testing and with introductions to clients such as NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

“The Health Innovation North West Coast team have been supporting us in various ways for around eight years,” he said.

“That support includes product-testing, validation, developing business cases and, crucially, introducing us to the right people who can decide whether we can help them.

“They’ve been pivotal to our success and navigating the system is an art they know very well: I recently had an introduction to an ICB director which means we’re working to get sensors in GP surgeries.

“The team is so easy to engage with, they’re very thorough and professional honest brokers – they always tell me if an idea isn’t great or I’m going in the wrong direction.”

Dr Michael Watts, co-founder and Chief Executive of Birkenhead-based Blüm Health, said Health Innovation North West Coast had delivered invaluable support in the five years since his software company’s foundation.

“The health innovation networks underpin the growth trajectory for start-ups whenever their primary partner is the NHS. Health Innovation North West Coast is commercially very savvy and has been the golden thread that has linked all the successful partnerships we’ve manage to form in the region.

“More recently the support has been less about handholding and more about connecting and networking with other health innovation networks who can help spread our work, nationally and internationally.

“In the last 12 months, for example, we’ve secured a contract with a trust to supply software that delivers AI-enhanced patient communication. This is a bespoke solution and I’m not sure it would have happened without the support of Health Innovation North West Coast.

“The team has helped us with important conversations when engaging with the public sector, with evaluation and with raising brand-awareness, as well as direct financing in the past. “

Health Innovation North West Coast’s support has helped safeguard seven jobs and create a further four at Blüm Health in the past year, while helping to secure around £490,000 in funding.

Dr Michael Watts is a medical doctor and an NHS National Innovation Accelerator Fellow, who featured on our website in April 2023 after developing software to improve emergency support in maternity.

Mike Kenny, Associate Director of Innovation and Industry Partnerships at Health Innovation North West Coast, said: “There is no shortage of creative companies in our region with innovations that can make a lasting impact on patient outcomes as well as boosting our economy.

“The big challenge is to make sure those innovations are adopted by the health and care system – and sometimes they’re not. That’s why it’s so rewarding to support companies to the point where their innovations gain traction and deliver on their potential.”