With the UK Government’s stated ambition that NHS patients should be among the first in the world to get life-changing treatments now is the time for medical device companies, looking to fast track their breakthrough technologies, to have an effective UK NHS engagement plan and the required specialist resources in place.
In terms of importance the UK NHS is the largest publically funded health service in the world and the sixth largest medical device market.
The UK medical device market itself is worth around £76 billion pounds per year with the NHS being its largest customer. Many US based medtech companies have set up subsidiaries here.
With a budget of around £147.5 billion pounds, and serving around 64 million people, NHS staff come into contact with more than 1.5mllion patients and their families every day.
Innovation, joined up working and process re-engineering backed by a support package, for the products that will make the difference, is the way the NHS will achieve this ambition and the £22 billion of efficiencies as set out in their Five Year Forward View.
Over the coming months we will continue to see closer working between the national bodies, a greater alignment and coordination of clinical research funding decisions, the streamlining of the regulatory, reimbursement, evaluation and diffusion processes.
A favourable health technology assessment and a positive reimbursement decision to be based on robust clinical and economic evidence showing significant benefits compared with standard care.
Being a world respected reference market the health technology guidance and reimbursement decisions taken by the UK NHS can be used to support accelerated market access in the US and other European markets.
By way of further demonstrating its commitment to “change through innovation” the NHS has just announced the new ‘accelerated access pathway” to be implemented in April 2018. Here “breakthrough” designated products, with the greatest potential to change lives, could be available up to 4 years earlier through attracting a focussed package of support. Here the opportunity for medtech is to get their products included under the program and increase share holder value is certainly an exciting one!
Put in its simplest terms, those health technologies which promise the greatest benefits will be supported and fast tracked through the UK NHS health system. UK clinicians will be responsible for delivering the require changes working in collaboration with patients, the national bodies and the medtech industry.
With over 30 years of collaborative working with the UK NHS, Vision Healthcare is ideally placed to support UK/European and US based medtech companies, predominantly start ups and SME’s, effectively and efficiently engage with the evolving UK healthcare system. The UK outcomes data generated, and the evidence based decisions taken, being used to speed up adoption in other markets.
Acting as an extension to your senior management team we do this by providing both decision and on the ground operational support. This is what makes us unique
In the next of a series of short articles I will share some insights on how to take advantage of these new and evolving opportunities.