Staying ahead of the curve
Connect your business with a powerful network of experts, mentors and support services to drive innovation in West Yorkshire.
West Yorkshire has all the vital components to be an engine of health ideas and innovation that can drive levelling up, not just for the region’s economy, but for the nation’s health.
The region has been recognised by central government as a high potential opportunity area for woundcare, regenerative tissue, AI, and data analytics.
However, across West Yorkshire Healthtech SMEs are facing significant obstacles to innovation. A recent report by the Health Technology Regulatory and Innovation Programme cited the following as some of the barriers to innovation in this sector:
- Navigating the regulatory framework is extremely difficult
- Lack of notified bodies / conformity assessment bodies causing delays
- Access to public funding in a timely and straightforward process
- Support in the later stages of innovation – particularly in the run up to commercialising a product or service
- Deploying funds to achieve sustainability targets in line with the NHS’ ambition of net zero for 2045
- Understanding and using intellectual property protection is complex and costly
Empowering your business
Connecting Innovation, the specialist innovation programme delivered by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, provides SMEs with the connections they need to overcome these obstacles.
Once on the programme, businesses have access to the team who are experts in their field. They are well connected – from research organisations to advisory services, intellectual property experts and incubators – they know the local landscape better than anyone.
The team are there to help you to understand how to develop an innovation strategy, empower your workforce to contribute ideas and improvements and how to exploit and protect your ideas.
But that’s just the beginning. Need an industry expert? Want to speak with someone who’s been through a similar process? They help businesses make those connections. That’s the beauty of Connecting Innovation – they are so deeply embedded in the local business ecosystem that businesses have a vast pool of support and expertise at their fingertips.
The programme recently supported Digibete CIC – a medtech business supporting people with Type 1 Diabetes and helping them to access information and support to manage their condition.
Their product - DigiBete is a digital platform to share videos and educational resources about Type 1 Diabetes. The content is designed to help support children, young people and families to self-manage their diabetes by extending the reach of clinical teams online.
DigiBete CIC initially worked with the Leeds Children’s Hospital Paediatric Diabetes team to develop patient-led and clinically approved resources. They are now fully supported by NHS in England and Wales.
“We started working with the Connecting Innovation team to explore the support available locally to help develop two-way communication in our existing app. We discovered so much from them, and went on to successfully apply for, and be awarded a Kickstart Grant which has enabled us to bring the two-way communication technology to our app much, much quicker.”
The grant money was used to source the specialist expertise needed for the app development.
This specialist expertise enabled them to develop and implement two-way communication into their current app and appointment setting as a feature. This brings clinics and patients closer together and facilitates better management of the condition by those supporting children and families dealing with Type 1 Diabetes, through more routine, regular digital communications.
John Hughes, director at DigiBete CIC commented: “Making the lives of people managing Type 1 Diabetes easier and more informed has always been our main goal. However, we can now see how this could work for other long term or lifelong conditions – so much so that we are looking at ways to roll this type of support out more widely”
Through their work, DigiBete CIC have been recognised by The Health Foundation as an exemplar for other long-term conditions. The clinic and patient support app is currently used in more than 90% of NHS paediatric clinics as well as many young adult clinics throughout England and Wales and is currently used by around 20,000 patients and families and 1350 healthcare professionals. It is shortly to be onboarded into Scotland with Northern Ireland and Ireland planned for 2023.
Hughes concludes: “We are excited at what DigiBete has achieved and the difference we can genuinely make to the lives of people living with Type 1 Diabetes and potentially other lifelong conditions. The assistance from Connecting Innovation has helped ensure that we can get key developments delivered much quicker and supported the introduction of further innovation.”
Connecting Innovation is open to all SMEs with an office or premises based in the West Yorkshire Region.
This support ends in March so there is no time to delay. Get in touch with our team and get the ball rolling. Email: innovation@the-lep.com