NHS Innovations South East (NISE) exists to support healthcare innovation - wherever it happens.  Often, it’s Innovation Managers work alongside NHS staff, helping them refine, protect and commercialise ideas with the right private sector support. Often, too, they work with healthcare businesses to develop, test and pilot products aimed at NHS consumers, as in this example.

High Tech Health are a Surrey-based company that specialises in technological healthcare products. They describe themselves as “providing solutions for injury recovery, disease prevention, symptom treatment and health improvement”.  One of the company’s products is the Circulation Booster, a device that stimulates nerve endings in the hands or feet and so improves circulation and helps reduce the risk of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. The device is available in two forms; one designed for use in the home and the other a portable or ‘mobile’ model.  Both have initially been marketed direct to individual consumers – with considerable success. 

However, High Tech Health are convinced that their mobile Circulation Booster also has a role to play in helping the NHS treat people with circulation problems. In severe cases, poor circulation can lead to foot and leg ulcers, deep vein thrombosis / pulmonary embolism, amputations and even death, so this is an important claim. But how does the company persuade the NHS of the merits of  the product?   

In this instance, High Tech Health sought the advice of one of NISE’s Innovation Managers, Tas Gohir. Once he had made an initial assessment of the product, Tas met with the company to “discuss the NHS landscape” and develop a plan that should enable the NHS to take a closer look at the product and High Tech Health to gather the kind of evidence needed to satisfy NHS purchasing commissioners.  Tas introduced the company to a local hospital specialising in the treatment of circulation problems, who agreed to conduct an initial trial. The trials were limited but sufficiently successful to provide the company with performance data and its first endorsement from inside the healthcare sector.  This, in turn, was enough to enable Tas to approach a Consultant in Critical Care at a second hospital   about a more extensive trial.  Together, the three parties the hospital, the company and NISE have developed a proposal for more extensive clinical trials.  The proposal is currently under consideration by the Hospital’s research ethics committee.

It is too soon to say whether this device will eventually be adopted by the NHS. What we can say with some certainty is that a device which appears to have the potential to improve patient care, and even to save lives is under serious consideration by the NHS thanks to the work of NISE in helping the NHS and the private sector understand one another better and work together more effectively.

If your company has innovative products in development that have the potential to improve healthcare and would be of interest to the NHS, why not contact NISE to explore current opportunities.