An NHS innovation agency in Scotland is seeking to boost the number of ‘clinical entrepreneurs’ within the ranks of the health service.
InnoScot Health has announced the dates for its latest NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, designed to build the entrepreneurial skills of clinicians.
A range of professional healthcare staff – including doctors, nurses, dentists and allied health professionals – are urged to apply when applications open on October 2.
Funding for Scottish applicants to join cohort 8 is still to be finalised but by completing an expression of interest form, interested parties will be kept up to date on the opportunity to take places on the CEP which lasts one year. Scottish healthcare innovators are also invited to CEP ‘prep sessions’ taking place from this month up until September.
Recordings of the first three free to join sessions – ‘Get application ready’, ‘Introduction to the programme and meet our entrepreneurs’ and ‘Knowing your innovation’ – are available here while subsequent sessions, taking place in September and October, can now be registered for in the same place.
The CEP is delivered by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and is part of the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC).
The second successive year of the programme being open to Scottish healthcare professionals has so far seen 12 innovation-minded NHS staff selected from across Scotland to take part after a competitive assessment process.
They, and future programme participants, will be given focused learning on how to develop the necessary insight and know-how to successfully develop their ideas for the benefit of patients, the public, and the wider NHS.
Staff from NHS Scotland partner InnoScot Health welcomed the CEP’s Scottish cohort at a launch back in February, alongside The Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI), NHS Education for Scotland (NES), Scottish Enterprise, and the Scottish Health and Industry Partnership Group (SHIP).
The cohort started out on their year-long development journey in February and the coordination group will continue to aid and encourage their innovation ambitions, helping them to identify channels of support while providing networking and collaboration opportunities.
Gillian Henderson, head of project management at InnoScot Health, said: “It is great to see the programme continuing to flourish with the announcement of another cohort and sustained involvement of Scottish health service entrepreneurs.
“The CEP is the biggest entrepreneurial workforce development programme of its kind and to date has supported over 1,000 innovators to develop their ideas to date. Key aims, which we fully support, include allowing entrepreneurs and creative thinkers to pursue their innovation without having to leave the health service.”
