December, 2011

The grass roots effect of NTAC

Despite positive NICE guidance and support from the National Clinical Director uptake of insulin pump therapy is poor with considerable inequities in both provision and access being found across the UK; with many areas having less than 1 percent take up. The UK significantly lags behind many other parts of the world where, in some countries, uptake is nearing 40 percent. NTAC initiated a project with the objective of challenging this situation and takes a look back at the effect the project had.

Filling a GAP

NTAC has launched a new online tool designed to enable proven medical technology to be more efficiently adopted into the NHS. The Generic Adoption Process, or GAP, provides a clear and detailed roadmap, along with the required tools to enable proven medical technologies to be adopted. The unique tool is aimed at both the NHS and private sector suppliers and consolidates NTAC’s extensive and unique learning from a range of successful ‘Technology Implementation Projects’.

Commenting on the launch NTAC chief executive Sally Chisholm said: “GAP has been tested by a number of key stakeholders, from the NHS and industry, and we are very excited to be launching it in the market. We believe this is a vital tool which will help drive widespread adoption of proven technologies as GAP can provide unrivalled knowledge and information to those who do not choose to directly engage with NTAC on an implementation project, for example.

The idea for GAP came from our recognition that there is a clear need for something which can equip clinicians, managers and other key stakeholders crucial to service development with the tools and resources they need to be able to drive change and innovation throughout the NHS.”

Telehealth or telehype?

Telehealth has been considered, by some, as the panacea to healthcare delivery whilst others, the sceptics out there consider that the ‘h’ should stand for hype rather than health. Despite the opinions there is no doubt that web based healthcare tools have lagged significantly behind other industries. It is quite normal for people to bank, buy and bet online but healthcare has been, in the most part, confined to the provision of information rather than being interactive or transactional.

So what role can telehealth play in healthcare and does it offer a solution for healthcare reform?

NTAC and Industry

Despite having identified a clinical need and developed an innovative solution to meet that need many organisations still struggle to motivate usage within the NHS. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the solution is not right. How can NTAC help?

Focus on innovation

Sir Ian Caruthers has been tasked with leading a review on how the spread of innovation can be accelerated throughout the NHS. With the report due out in November NTAC relished the opportunity to share its knowledge.

In the News...

On 27th October the BBC (South) featured a story which looked at the potential cost saving benefits of the breast lymph node assay. This technology, which was the focus of a recent NTAC How to Why to Guide™ has the potential to remove the need for a second operation thereby saving the NHS £5m a year or 11,000 operations.

Spreading the word

As the new NTAC gathers momentum NTAC Chief Executive, Sally Chisholm, has been asked to speak at a number of industry events to share the knowledge and experience of the organisation. Speaking on global health infrastructure – the challenges for the next decade in October and diabetes care in December the NTAC name, and reputation, is becoming even more widely known.

What is innovation?

Innovation comes from the latin ‘innovatus’ or ‘innovare’ which means to renew or change but more recent use of the term focuses on the creative of something better or ‘new’. But does it have to be new to be better?

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