Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has been selected to join the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme led by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), the official partner of NHS England and NHS Improvement.

The programme aims to nurture healthcare innovators from across the country and help them gain the commercial skills, knowledge and experience to make their ideas become a reality.

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust will be the only London NHS hospital partnering with the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, which was founded in 2016 and has become the world’s largest entrepreneurial training programme in healthcare, helping to transform patient care across the NHS.

Chris Chaney, chief executive of CW+, co-lead of the Trust’s CW Innovation programme said: “We are delighted to be a partner with the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme and deliver on our shared vision to transform patient care and experience, as well as support our staff to innovate and bring new ideas to fruition. Our CW Innovation programme – jointly led by the Trust and its charity, CW+ - fast-tracks new technologies and innovations that address the most urgent and fundamental challenges faced by healthcare organisations today.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has catalysed an acceleration in innovation and research and we have advanced at pace to introduce a range of innovations into the day-to-day running of our hospitals. Our collaboration with ARU and the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme represents another exciting milestone for CW Innovation’s expanding portfolio of ‘test and scale’ partnerships that include digital healthcare, AI and machine learning, and remote patient-centred care.”

The NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme network will provide opportunities for internships, access to NHS test and evaluation sites, academic and commercial facilities in Europe, America, Africa and Australia, access to funding and knowledge exchange and connection to customers. A new intake of 194 entrepreneurs have recently started, taking the total number of entrepreneurs to over 700.

Professor Yvonne Barnett, deputy vice chancellor for research and innovation at ARU, said: “The global pandemic has demonstrated how important the UK life science industry is to our nation’s future. COVID-19 tests, vaccines and virtual medical appointments have been a key part of our battle with Coronavirus.

“Now we look forward to delivering entrepreneurial education to the NHS nationally, building on our reputation as a regional anchor for health training and one of the largest providers of HE provision for healthcare professionals in the UK.”

Professor Tony Young, national clinical lead for innovation at NHS England and director of medical innovation at ARU, added: “The NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme is one of the largest innovation projects in the world allowing patients to be treated with the latest technology.

“It is fantastic that the NHS is able to strengthen its partnership with the life science industry through this programme and create one of the largest life science park networks in Europe, building on the excellent work of creating the biggest vaccination programme in health service history during the pandemic.”

In the first four years of the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, over 500 clinical entrepreneurs were recruited. Between them, 24/7 life science start-up companies have been created, over £270 million of funding has been raised through investment largely from the private sector, and more than 30 million patients and users have benefited from the innovations.

Examples of innovations through the programme include smartphone otoscopes to look inside the ear, and drones designed to carry medical supplies between NHS sites.