September 2022 Newsletter

UK's first medical drone delivery project CAELUS enters next phase

The Care & Equity – Healthcare Logistics UAS Scotland (CAELUS) project led by AGS Airports is working to deliver what will be the first national drone network that can transport laboratory samples, essential medicines and other medical supplies throughout Scotland including to remote communities. On 5th September, NHS stakeholders were invited to attend a workshop run by CAELUS project partners Connected Places Catapult and NHS Scotland, seeking a range of healthcare perspectives on the applications for drones developed so far in the CAELUS programme, additional NHS Scotland applications for drones that could be considered in this next phase and what the priorities should be for developing drone services with NHS Scotland. This was followed by the official CAELUS Showcase event & launch at Glasgow Airport.

Opthalmology Innovation call – Help advance innovative eyecare solutions

InnoScot Health is seeking forward-thinking ophthalmic solutions that can help support NHS Scotland to strengthen and make meaningful change in this priority area of its recovery plan.

Encouraging NHS Scotland’s diverse workforce to come up with new ideas that achieve better outcomes in pressured ophthalmology is vital and is at the heart of InnoScot Health’s latest innovation call. The behaviours of NHS Scotland’s 160,000-strong workforce will influence how the service mitigates and adapts to ophthalmic backlogs and heightened pressures; and so, encouraging this diverse workforce to come up with new ways of working is vital.

Pogo Digital Healthcare win Digital Transformation Award for NHS Lothian project

The Herald Digital Transformation Awards 2022 recognised some of the best uses of technology by businesses in Scotland. Congratulations to Pogo Digital Healthcare who won the Best Use of Technology in Healthcare Award for a long covid management application. “The long covid digital pathway developed by Pogo, NHS Lothian and Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland (CHSS) is a great example of how the NHS, third and private sectors can work together to build a truly innovative solution to the challenges faced by people with long covid.” (Dr Tracey Gillies, NHS Lothian Medical Director). The project has been codesigned between HISES, NHS Lothian and CHSS and the pilot launched with a small number of GP practices in March 2022. Wider rollout across Scotland is planned for late 2022, read more on the Pogo website here.

NHS Clinical Entrepreneur - Programme opening soon

Do you have a great innovative idea to improve healthcare? Launched in 2016, the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme (CEP), is an entrepreneurial work force development programme aimed at NHS staff and healthcare professionals. Applications for cohort 7 will open on 3rd October 2022 and close on 30th October 2022. For those who have a great idea but would like more information, you can register for a series of ‘CEP Prep’ events in September or read the FAQs on the website via the below link.

SBRI: Home Glaucoma Monitoring Phase 1—Closing soon!

NHS Forth Valley, on behalf of the Eye Health Consortium, NHS Scotland and the Scottish Health and Industry Partnership (SHIP), Scottish Government are hosting the Home Glaucoma Monitoring Open Innovation Challenge. The challenge is to develop and validate the tools needed for home (or near-patient) glaucoma assessment, including home tonometry and home assessment of visual function, and potentially even optic disc imaging. SHIP is investing up to £210,000 inclusive of VAT across both phases of this competition. The competition closes at 12pm on 21st September 2022.

Registration is now open for DigiFest22

Registration & poster submissions are open for DigiFest22. The DigiFest programme will feature Scottish, UK and International examples of digitally enabled services being deployed across a range of health, care, and home settings. DigiFest22 will combine a programme of free-to-attend, virtual and in-person satellite sessions from October 2022, and a one-day in-person event in November 2022. The one-day in-person conference on 30th November 2022 is taking place at the University of Strathclyde, Technology & Innovation Centre, Glasgow and will be launched by Mr. Humza Yousaf, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and Cllr. Paul Kelly, Social Care and the COSLA Spokesperson for Health and Social Care.

CSO announce latest round of Clinical Academic Fellowship Scheme

The aim of the Clinical Academic Fellowship scheme is to build research capacity in the Scottish NHS as such it provides the opportunity for clinical professionals early in their career to undertake a PhD. This scheme is open for applications with a deadline of Wednesday 12th October 2022

Scotland’s Leading Public Procurement Event

Registration is open for Procurex Scotland and the Scottish Government National Procurement Conference, both taking place on Thursday 27th October at the SEC Glasgow. The Scottish Government’s annual report on national procurement activity highlighted that 58p in every £1 spent with suppliers in Scotland went to an SME – showcasing that for Scotland’s public sector, SMEs play a vital role in helping to deliver efficient, effective, and affordable public services. Procurex Scotland 2022 provides buyers engaged across the Scotland’s procurement community with an invaluable opportunity to meet with leading suppliers, who are actively delivering a diverse range of innovative products and services that can support both current and future procurement requirements.

EMERGENCE Healthcare Technologies Network+ Robotics for Frailty Challenge Briefing

With a focus on tackling frailty and facilitating the emergence of healthcare robots from labs into service, the EPSRC EMERGENCE Healthcare Technlogies Network+ project has been set up to foster and facilitate innovative research and development of healthcare robotic solutions so that they can be realised as pragmatic and sustainable, providing personalised, affordable, and inclusive health and social care in the community. A briefing event will take place 28th September 2022 which will discuss the upcoming funding call.

Landmark partnership aims to improve Scotland’s health

A ground-breaking collaboration between NHS, university and industry partners has been launched to co-create NHS Scotland transformation through large scale programmes to improve the health of the population and expand clinical research. NHS Golden Jubilee’s national Centre for Sustainable Delivery, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, University of Glasgow, AstraZeneca UK and Lenus Health have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to deliver NHS transformation by testing new patient pathways / digital technologies to enable earlier diagnosis and treatment; enable large scale clinical trials and studies in Scotland; collect evidence to assess the effectiveness of these new clinical management pathways, and scale up successful pathways to spread across NHS Scotland.

Inspiring Innovation in Cancer Care

Join us on Tuesday 4th October from 2pm to 4:30pm for an online event open to all staff working in Cancer Services in Scotland. There will be an opportunity to hear from Scotland’s lead innovators in Cancer Care, NASA, academic and innovation leaders.

Transforming diabetes care in Scotland – The role of policy, research, and innovation

This event will take place 9am – 4pm on Wednesday, 23rd November 2022 at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and will provide an update on the diabetes research and innovation projects in Scotland. The morning keynote will be delivered by the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, NHS Scotland and will be followed by a variety of speakers providing short talks on topics of significant interest such as SCI Diabetes, ANIA programme, Scottish Diabetes Group update and both research and innovation project highlights.

Cohort 19 applications open for NES DLP

Applications are now open for Cohort 19 of the NES Digital Health & Care Leadership Programme (DLP). This programme is open to health, care, and housing staff. Deadline for applications is 31st October 2022 with a start date in January 2023.

Latest funding opportunities

Check out the latest health and care funding opportunities from across the sector on the funding section of our website.