Genuine transformation will depend on every one of the 1.4 million people working in today’s NHS

One of the aspects I most enjoy about my role at the Health Foundation is the opportunity to meet people from across the health service working on ideas to improve health care. Most recently, the Foundation has partnered with UCLP and four other AHSNs to host the NHS Innovation Accelerator programme for NHS England. 

Seventeen innovators have been selected all with exciting, proven ideas, ready to be adopted more widely across the NHS.

The innovations are diverse and include: 

• BrushDJ – a smartphone app developed by Ben Underwood. The app is an evidence-based, free, NHS approved app that motivates an effective self-care oral hygiene routine by playing two minutes of the user’s music – making tooth-brushing fun! This follows news that over 26,000 five to nine year olds are undergoing general anaesthetics each year to deal with the problems of tooth decay. Ensuring children adopt good oral hygiene from a young age will help prevent a number of dental diseases for a lifetime.
• NeuroResponse – a new technology developed by Bernadette Porter that gives patients with neurological conditions more control over the care they receive, through access to a telephone triage/advice line staffed by specialist nurses, email advice services for GPs wishing to contact a consultant neurologist, and a video clinic linking a specialist’s neurology team with the patient and local clinical team in the patient’s community.
• Episcissors-60 – patented fixed angle scissors, developed by Dharmesh Kapoor, that take away human error in estimating episiotomy angles during childbirth. This innovation reduces the risk of complications associated with standard practice episiotomies, which can cause obstetric anal sphincter muscle injuries and have a devastating impact on the quality of a new mother’s life.
• Patients Know Best – an IT platform developed by Lloyd Humphries that enables people to hold all their medical information in a single record, which they themselves own. Able to invite anyone they wish to their profile, they can construct a strong and comprehensive care network best suited to them, made up of diverse clinical teams and friends and family able to support at-home care.

There can be no questions that for the child that avoids the need for oral surgery, the woman that preserves her continence after childbirth, the people empowered to better manage their own care, these innovations will be transformative. However, at times it can be challenging to see how interventions that in themselves are quite small can lead to transformation of a service as complex as the NHS. But then, I am reminded of Margaret Mead’s quote: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has’.

So I would urge NHS leaders to remember that genuine transformation will depend on every one of the 1.4 million people working in today’s NHS to start doing things differently. Occasionally these changes will be significant but mostly they will be small. Yet, without them no improvements will be sustained.

So, as policy-makers mull over the idea of the transformation fund required to support the NHS to meet future challenges, it is critical that they recognise that while money, structures and processes to support transformation will be necessary, without deepening the current levels of staff engagement they will not be sufficient. When 40% of the workforce do not feel that they are able to contribute towards improvements at work, this means there are some 500,000 people in the NHS that, with the right support and encouragement, could be making their own individual transformative actions.