THE National Health Service (NHS) faces a funding crisis: already short of money, it said it will find £22 billion ($35 billion) in efficiency savings by 2020. But as emergency services creak and politicians shudder at the thought of closing more hospitals, within the system lies an untapped source of wealth.
The government first came up with the idea of making money from NHS employees’ inventions in 2002. More than a million people, it realised, were spending their days thinking about better ways to treat people. Innovation might save money, and hospitals could help their staff sell their ideas in exchange for a share in the profits. To make the plan work, the government allowed hospital trusts to buy shares in companies set up to develop an invention.
American hospitals have made vast sums from such arrangements: in 2014 Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston made $68.9m in licensing fees. But the British model is a less healthy specimen. According to Harry Quilter-Pinner at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a think-tank, British hospitals are often baffled as to how they are supposed to make any profits at all.
Although in theory the NHS is keen to exploit innovation, in practice the path is often blocked. One problem is that there is no clear process for pitching an idea: doctors who do must tout their wares...Continue reading
via Brian Rushton, Doctorpreneurs
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