The NHS is too slow to adopt novel technologies and could face a £30-billion funding gap in the next three years unless it addresses barriers to adoption, a former health minister has warned.
The NHS faces a projected £30bn funding gap by 2020-21 due to the increased cost of treating an ageing population, the prevalence of more long-term, chronic conditions, and higher expectations of the NHS, according to Nicola Blackwood, a policy fellow at Public, a private equity firm specialising in technology start-ups.
In a report for Public released on 10 April, Blackwood, who was a public health minister in the previous government of Theresa May, said that only by adopting novel technologies would the NHS close this gap. However, the NHS is “digitally risk-averse”, she wrote. A survey of health-tech start-ups for the report revealed decision-making processes, procurement systems and risk-averse attitudes “combine to block innovation and limit pilots”.
This article on Research Professional News is only available to Research Professional or Pivot-RP users.
Research Professional users can log in and view the article via this link
Pivot-RP users can log in and view the article via this link.