Projects involving NHS organisations using technology to achieve ‘net zero’ carbon emissions in the service have won funding of close to £100,000 each.
They are to receive shares of £1 million from the SBRI (Small Business Research Initiatives) Healthcare research programme, which has staged the Delivering a Net Zero NHS competition in partnership with the Greener NHS Programme, Academic Health Science Network and Accelerated Access Collaborative.
The programme is part of the effort to make the NHS net zero by 2040.
The projects are led by small companies but all involve NHS organisations as partners.
They include the CrossCover project, led by Primium Digital, to design a range of web applications to assist clinicians in making low carbon decisions for every patient encounter. It involves. Birmingham and Solihull CCG, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, and the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
Pathpoint SurgiCare is a cloud based workflow solution with patient communication tools to support treatment that does not require them to travel to a hospital. It is led by Open Medical with Eastern AHSN as the health service partner.
Project Angel uses drones to deliver healthcare to patients in the Northumbria Health NHS Foundation Trust area, with Apian being the lead.
Ufonia’s Dora is an autonomous clinical assistant for telemedicine triage, initially supporting head and neck cancer services. The NHS partners are Oxford AHSN and St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The full list of projects to receive funding is here.
Each project will run up to six months, aimed at demonstrating whether the innovations are technically feasible and have an impact on carbon reductions. Those that prove their potential will be able to seek further funding for prototype development and evaluation.
Key ambition
Dr Glenn Wells, chief partnerships officer at the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and chair of the SBRI Panel, said: “Delivering a net zero NHS is a key ambition to tackle within the healthcare system and it was great to see so many diverse innovations applying to the SBRI Healthcare programme to make an impact on the carbon emissions and align themselves to the NHS ambitions and more generally, commit to sustainable changes.
“We’ve seen some innovative digital tools that will ultimately drive reduction in care miles or that can be used as educational materials to enable greener decision making. We look forward to seeing how the SBRI Healthcare funding can support the net zero targets and enable the development and assessment of promising solutions.”
Image from iStock, Simpson33
