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Our survey and interview findings show that the SBRI Healthcare programme is providing effective support for small companies to develop innovations that address NHS needs.

The programme has a number of strengths, including low administrative burdens for applicants and awardees, effective processes for identifying and articulating needs, and a beneficial provision of health economics support in Phase 1.

However, addressing NHS needs entails going beyond innovation development to include uptake and use of the innovations. This step constitutes a fundamental challenge and will require collaboration with other innovation programmes.

Part of this could include:

• Ensuring that the AHSNs are well informed about who the SBRI Healthcare-supported companies are in their region and their stage of development.
• Ensuring there is clear guidance for the AHSNs about how they could support SBRI-supported companies.
• Providing networking opportunities for companies to learn from one another.
• Explore opportunities to engage with other national and regional funding programmes.

The SBRI Healthcare programme performs a valuable role for the NHS in the early-stage innovation funding landscape. Going forward it will be important to consider how best to coordinate the SBRI Healthcare programme with wider policy developments (including the Accelerated Access Review) and initiatives to progress the adoption, diffusion and scale-up in the NHS of the innovations it supports.