Sideways Innovation: Unlocking Greater Efficiency and Productivity

On 26th March CHN went to Shoreditch to hear insights from William Vereker (Chair of Santander UK), Vin Diwakar (NHS England) and Professor Andy Hardy (UHCW) on the opportunities for the NHS presented by technology-enabled productivity, drawing on examples from other industries.

Key takeaways can be summarised as:

1. There are considerable opportunities to adopt data mining tools to identify where the customer journey (from financial services to health and care pathways) can be improved. In healthcare, these potentially add up to major improvements in flow e.g. in reducing waiting lists. The quantum spent on tech is significantly higher in the financial services and many other sectors.
2. Technology and digital approaches can support delivery of care pathway redesign – from simple tools such as text reminders to more fundamental approaches such as a using AI to diagnose dermatology conditions.
3. Current approaches to procurement are clunky and inefficient – it would be better to have more national procurement and even mandates regarding what tech to use for what.
4. This requires strong leadership both nationally and locally and a willingness to invest in technology and to facilitate its roll out.

Thank you to our speakers, to Florence for hosting us at TechSpace and to our Principal Supporter, Celonis for co-creating and supporting this event.