The MTG sat down with David Lawson to reflect on three years guiding the government’s medical technology strategy and what industry, patients and stakeholders need to know about the developments underway to support the NHS’s pivot to technology under the Ten Year Plan.
You’ve been in the role of Director of Medical Technology & Innovation at the Department of Health and Social Care for three years now. Could you reflect on what you’ve learnt about how the NHS really adopts and spreads MedTech, and how that experience is shaping or reshaping your priorities in the current landscape of reform?
When I speak with start-ups, SMEs, and large MedTech companies, they all cite the challenges of navigating a diffused health system in which they often must persuade local decision makers ‘one at a time’ and a combination of both inconsistency in how and who makes decisions, as well as duplication in the evidence requested.
When I speak to local systems, they cite the challenges of not knowing which technology to select with so many different options available, uncertainty over whether to believe claims made, and the limited headroom for busy frontline clinical teams to implement change.
This feedback is shaping our current areas of focus. For instance, we now have a standard guidance for value-based procurement and product comparison systems to support local decision making and speed up adoption. The guidance and comparison system will apply across all primary and secondary care spend, with it due to be launched late spring or early summer. We’re aiming for a beta version of the comparison system by the end of the calendar year.
The Ten Year Plan sets out more powers for local commissioners. You’ve previously warned that the NHS’s £10bn medtech spend was being undermined by a lack of data at a trust level. Could you tell us more about how the department is responding to this issue, and how perhaps different stakeholders – from industry to patient groups – could work together to address it?
Poor data quality holds back our ability to compare and measure the impact of medtech and acts as a barrier to scaling up adoption. In response the Department is building a national product information management system to provide a repository of up-to-date medical devices by Unique Device Identifier. The system will be in place by this summer and provides the foundation for a product comparison system which will bring together validated and trusted data sources in one place.
This system is in alpha phase until March to finalise design ahead of moving to beta phase and go-live later in the year. A series of design sprints have been running since late autumn, bringing together NHS staff and industry to test thinking and understand what a system needs to include for it to be of genuine value for local decision makers.
The NHS is now piloting new value-based procurement guidelines for medtech, with wider rollout expected this year. Could you update us on how those pilots are progressing and how you see this approach supporting delivery of the NHS Ten Year Plan over the next few years?
Following shadow testing last year and co-development with industry of model answers, 13 NHS Trusts, NHS Supply Chain, and the London Procurement Partnership are now applying the draft value-based procurement guidance to Trusts’ tenders and four national framework agreement tenders. The pilots provide a final test ahead of launching the guidance over the coming months. Work is now turning to implementation planning and providing support to both procurement teams and industry – with an ongoing training offer including on-line tutorials, alongside a more targeted support programme under development to help our SMEs thrive.
Introducing standard guidance is a first key step in shifting the assessment of medtech to outcomes and impact, and introducing greater consistency in process. This will support delivery of the NHS Ten Year Plan by enabling the routine adoption of high impact innovation. If we can make the NHS a better customer of innovation, that in turn will attract investment to support economic growth.
With these reforms now taking shape, from national product data systems to value‑based procurement, what advice would you give to medtech companies and innovators on how they can best prepare for, and position themselves to take advantage of these changes?
With a shift towards value-based procurement supported by improved data to enable product comparison, industry will be increasingly asked to provide the supporting evidence to back-up claims. At the same time, the move towards a more consistent approach to assessment using the question bank within the value-based procurement guidance should help industry know what to aim for.
The MTG’s latest report can be accessed here: Rebuilding Accountability in a Changing NHS: A Review of ICB Leadership, Innovation and Patient Outcomes
Related
link