Our NHS is at stake: frontline health innovation shows a better future is possible
If you needed surgery in 1860, your chances of leaving the hospital sat at around 50-50.
Despite this high mortality rate, it was widely accepted this was just how it was.
Then along came Joseph Lister. In one of the earliest examples of health innovation he pioneered the use of antiseptics in surgery, laying the ground for modern day medicine.
Lister’s idea was simple. After germ theory became more widely accepted, he wondered what could be done to stop bacteria from causing infections on the operating table.
Despite initial opposition from his peers, in just three years he reported a drop in the death rate from 46 percent to 15 percent. His efforts marked a huge leap in progress.
Today, a different kind of challenge exists, with our NHS reaching its own inflection point and perhaps at its most vulnerable in its 75-year history.
I worked in the NHS for close to 35 years. First as a psychiatric nurse, I spent time in various clinical roles, before pivoting my career into technology with more than 20 years as an NHS Chief Information Officer (CIO). I’ve seen first-hand the challenges people face every single day.
I understand how much frontline workers care about helping patients. It’s this depth of feeling which makes the NHS so special.
For an organisation that so many of us hold dearly, we must acknowledge that something has to change. That’s why, following in the same spirit of Joseph Lister, a new approach is needed.
Creating the space to innovate and to “fail” safely
The challenges facing the NHS today are too great for one organisation alone to tackle. Collective support is needed.
We are the Lister Alliance, a consortium of technology specialists, academic institutions, and healthcare leaders, working in direct partnership with NHS Trusts.
We are inspired by a vision of a better way of delivering healthcare with technology, one that maximises and supports the talents and efforts of an overstretched workforce.
Made real in our ‘living labs’, we put innovation on the frontline – creating new services through an application of technology, all aiming to improve patient outcomes.
So far, we’re helping develop a new smart ambulance service, and we’re also re-imagining the approach to serious injury rehabilitation in Nottingham.
Creating a safe space for innovation and having ‘permission to fail’ is desperately needed in the NHS – and yet it’s a luxury it doesn’t have.
From my experience, there’s a general attitude of failure being viewed in a negative binary. Instead, failure can be seen as part of progress, using both positive and negative experiences to learn and improve for next time.
Approached this way, frontline workers can have the time, funding, and licence to experiment which will ultimately improve patient’s lives. It is a tried and tested way of innovating in other sectors, yet for the NHS this is not the case.
Today’s intense pressure experienced by frontline staff means they are often only able to focus on what’s immediately in front. There simply isn’t enough time to think about new technology, or even the headspace to upskill.
By removing some of these barriers, and involving frontline workers from the beginning, only then can any kinks or challenges be ironed out with a new technological deployment.
We call this innovation from the bottom-up, as opposed to implementation from the top-down, and it ensures the needs of patients and workers are met. And it’s the guiding principle upon which the Lister Alliance was built.
More than money is needed to realise the ‘hospital of the future’
A change in approach, with no more ‘top-down’ implementation of technology which doesn’t benefit healthcare professionals or patients, offers a vital lifeline as the NHS fights for its future.
It is clear things haven’t been working as they need to, without for want of effort. For example, the Paperless 2020 NHS Digital project, aiming to fully digitalise record-keeping and information sharing, only found success in 12% of NHS Trusts.
In this case, electronic paper records could bring great efficiencies to services, yet if the staff nurse can’t connect to the WIFI then the technology becomes pointless.
It's no surprise healthcare professionals feel like they’ve had their fingers burnt by technology before.
These negative experiences are still swirling, all while the Government’s New Hospital Programme (NHP) has lofty ambitions to build 40 new hospitals by 2030. Much of this work will involve revamping the underlining infrastructure, setting up for the ‘digital hospitals’ of the future.
Avoiding the mistakes of the past and making this vision realistic and tangible requires more than just money.
With that in mind, we want to show a different way of doing things can lead to a better future.
The Lister Alliance is funded by Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) programme – which aims to deliver wider benefits to society through technology. Our consortium of partners from across Cisco’s broad ecosystem offers NHS Trusts a range of collective experiences, expertise, and resources.
Combining a change in approach from top-down implementation to bottom-up innovation will ultimately benefit patients and frontline workers.
Lister himself wouldn’t have got everything right first time around. And yet he was able to achieve great things – let’s take those lessons forward and help our NHS today.
Want to help shape the future of healthcare?
We’re currently working with Trusts to path find the future of the NHS, but there is a chance to join this group of pioneers.
Through our programme we can create insights, learn important lessons for the whole country, and shorten the time to success. And in the long term, this will help the New Hospital Programme shift a gear in terms of delivery.
Lister transformed healthcare through making bold leaps into the unknown. Today, with the NHS in crisis, bold action is needed – and joining us could be the first step in that journey.
