The UK could save an estimated 20,000 avoidable deaths each year and a further £10 billion could be saved from reduced costs related to health, social care and unpaid care by introducing health innovations. This data was revealed by the Institute for Public Policy Research, IPPR in June 2020.

Before we go any further, let’s try to understand what innovation really is. Innovation is often described as something that happens spontaneously in an unstructured and unordered environment. However, innovation is also viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs.

So in terms of Continuing Healthcare, might it be that the NHS requires better solutions that meet existing market needs?

adam’s expertise in digital transformation for Continuing Healthcare can help Clinical Commissioning Groups or CCGs to define a problem and domain they are currently struggling with. When your problem and domain are well defined the matrix shows that the best method to create innovation is sustaining innovation.

Sustaining innovation improves existing processes. It does not create new markets or value markets but develops existing ones with better value. Going back to the Continuing Healthcare framework, the market is already defined but how can we provide more value for CCG’s?

One of the examples might be using our provider compliance and quality tool which acts as a great communication channel and a provider Hub. It is used for monitoring performance against existing measures, sharing information and arranging events. Since West Lancashire CCG started using the tool, they have achieved 17 fewer hospital admissions each month which is a huge saving to the local care system.

We offer the only proven end-to-end digital CHC platform in the UK and can support CCGs with anything from improving the efficacy of referral handling, to improving patient outcomes through sustainable commissioning. To learn more, please click here.

If you work for the NHS and are considering how you can make improvements, consider the steps below:

– Evaluate your existing governing processes. You can do this in relatively short timescales and staff enjoy the debate. We hold scoping sessions with all of our prospective and existing CCG customers to share our expertise on best practice.

– Concentrate on the areas that need improvement. Identifying obvious problem areas and potential solutions enthuses staff and builds momentum for change. We help our customers better understand process issues and share ideas as to what might work best.

– Split your objectives into smaller easily employed pieces. Tackle the quick wins – it reduces the size and cost of change and enthuses staff. Our project experts work with customers to build a change plan over time to make change manageable and enjoyable.

– Commit to the process. Once a plan is agreed, find time to do it – the benefits will outweigh the costs. Our CCG customers are assigned a dedicated delivery expert who makes sure our product always delivers more value than it costs.

Sustaining innovation is the best method of implementing innovations for the Continuing Healthcare framework. adam can assist CCGs in identifying current problem and domain during improvement implementation processes. Once CCGs completed their innovation, CHC performance and patient outcomes are dramatically improved.