Celebrating Bright Ideas in Healthcare

Health Enterprise East (HEE) has announced the winners of its 2016 NHS Innovation Competition which challenged staff from Member Trusts to come forward with ideas for products to address unmet needs in the NHS and improve patient services. For the first time this year, the competition also included a category for industry.

BBC Look East presenter Susie Fowler-Watt hosted the awards presentation at London Stansted’s Radisson Blu Hotel on 9th June. Winners of each of the five categories - Medical Technology, Patient Safety, Software/ICT/Assistive Technology, Service Improvement, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) Innovation - received £2,500 to further develop their idea and an engraved trophy.

Announced winners are:

?         Medical Technology
Peter Hoskin & team from East & North Hertfordshire NHS Trust: Fixation template device for the delivery of high dose radiation (brachytherapy) in prostate cancer treatment.

?         Patient Safety
Dr Latha Thangaraj & team from West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust: Living in comfort, cherishing life - A project that has dramatically improved outcomes for elderly patients following hip fracture surgery.

?         Software/ICT/Assistive Technology
Harikrishna Doshi & team from Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust: Lung donor offers – An App that automatically matches organ donors to an ideal recipient from a pool of potential candidates without the need for manual selection.

?         Service Improvement
Philippa Taitt & team from Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust:  A project that has increased efficiency and improved patient satisfaction by influencing ‘Did Not Attends’ (DNAs) in a busy radiology department.

?         SME Innovation
Andrea Haworth & team at Congenica Ltd: A genome analytics platform for rapid and accurate genomic interpretation and diagnosis of genetic disorders.

Guest Speakers at the ceremony were Dr Steve Feast, newly appointed Managing Director of the Eastern Academic Health Science Network (EAHSN) and Andrea Haworth, Head of Clinical Services at Congenica, a company founded on world-leading genomic technology pioneered at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the Department of Health.