Despite an abundance of new technologies, successfully implementing and scaling digital innovation across the NHS is a major challenge. In 2022/3, NICE assessed 190 products with sufficient evidence to go through its guidance programmes. However, the Innovation Ecosystem Programme’s own report (published November 2024) found that such technologies still face considerable barriers in transitioning from early-stage adoption to national scale.

Variations in organisational capacity, unequal access to funding and differences in baseline adoption rates across sites hinder the ability to achieve consistent nationwide implementation. Failure to expand adoption leads to avoidable disparities in outcomes, and a perception that the UK lacks the supportive environment needed for health technologies to scale.

In this session, Manjul Rathee (founder at BFB Labs, a social enterprise working with NHS partners to integrate a NICE-recommended digital therapeutic service for children called Lumi Nova) will be joined by Pauline Whelan from Greater Manchester Mental Health Foundation Trust / University of Manchester and Beth Gibbons from NHS Gloucestershire. They will use real-world case studies to share practical strategies for integrating innovation in the NHS to achieve strategic and policy aims.