NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme delivered by Anglia Ruskin University
April 2022
Background
Anglia Ruskin University have been commissioned by NHS England to deliver the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, which supports healthcare staff to develop and scale up their most innovative ideas for the benefits of patients and the health service.
Aim of the Program
The programme is part of the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) which brings together industry, government, regulators, patients and the NHS to remove barriers and accelerate the introduction of new ground-breaking treatments and diagnostics which have the potential to transform care.
The programme is the world's largest entrepreneurial training programme in healthcare.
Mentoring within the Clinical Entrepreneur Programme has been designed to enable Clinical Entrepreneurs access expert help that can help advance their innovations and ideas and as such is an excellent example of mentoring in healthcare. It is a guided relationship where Clinical Entrepreneurs can benefit from their mentor's specialist experience and expertise. The mentor's role is to support and advise the Clinical Entrepreneur with the development of their innovation or idea while on the programme.
Our Solution
Through a thorough procurement process the NHS CEP choose PLD as their mentoring platform provider. With a demonstrated history of working with NHS trusts and our experience of delivering similar solutions PLD provided the ideal customisable solution the programme needed.
Due to the high degree of configurability of the PLD mentoring solution NHS CEP were able to tailor the programme administration to reflect their existing application process as well as brand and configure the mentoring software to meet their needs.
The platform's ease of use and accessibility across devices has meant that many health professionals and industry experts, with pressures on their time have been able to sign up and immediately supply advice and information to clinical entrepreneurs looking to support the NHS with innovative solutions.
Results
Early indications are that this online mentoring platform is proving to be a beneficial tool, supporting the overall programme's aims, helping to nurture healthcare innovators from across the country and helping them gain the commercial skills, knowledge, and experience to make their ideas become a reality.
Whilst the majority of the entrepreneurs are still in the early stage of their relationships, initial feedback is positive and those that have completed their mentoring journey have found the platform easy to use and the support from their mentor was very useful.
Client Feedback
Why did you choose to work with PLD?
Previously we did all our mentor matching manually and as you can imagine this is a very time consuming and laborious process. We wanted a great digital solution that was customisable, scalable and that would help our mentees find that ideal mentor match. PLD provided this and more.
How have you found working with PLD?
The whole process was quick and easy to set up. The PLD team provided an excellent service, and we have been able to develop and adapt the platform to our needs which was essential.
The feedback from our users has been positive.
Do you feel you get value for money from the platform?
The platform is based on a site licence instead of cost per user, which for a large network like ours was essential. The additional support tools, documentation and resource have also been a bonus.
How easy have changes been to make and how responsive do you find the PLD support?
The support from the whole team from initial tender to development has been excellent. Responsive and helpful, a pleasure to work with.
