SPECIAL EPISODE 2 - Seven Conditions for Successful Innovation - Live at HETT Show 2025
The Briefing Room - Ministry of Health TechShow Notes
Having learned yesterday about thinking "pathway not product", developing informed game plans and how to build coalitions instead of concerns, the team are back for the final episode. More expert guests help to explain how to ensure there is demand for change and how to link policy to problem solving. They question when is the right time to call an implementation complete and discuss how to amplify your critical signals agains the noise of the innovation landscape. Base on the Health Innovation Network's "Seven Conditions for Successful Innovation" these two unique special edition podcasts offer compelling insights for both innovators scaling products and intrapreneurial health care professionals, in an essential and comprehensive guide to successful health tech innovation.
LINKS
Follow Ministry of Health Tech on LinkedIn for community chat and news … https://www.linkedin.com/company/ministry-of-health-tech
Register to our mailing list for early notice of upcoming Ministry events … https://mailchi.mp/6e8036301ba2/lgrvizlh6r
Explainer video “Seven Conditions for Successful Innovation” … https://thehealthinnovationnetwork.co.uk/health-innovation-network-explainer/
Seven Conditions for Successful Innovation …
1. Think pathway not product. The implementation of innovation is almost always about complicated technologies being adopted within complex environments. This means that it is not helpful to only focus on adding a single “point solution” into an existing way of working. Instead take time to understand the whole pathway being affected by the solution, making sure that you explore the reality for the staff, the users and the organisations involved in delivering that service. Consider the cultural implications of change just as much as the technical requirements.
2. Develop an informed game plan. Work through the implementation end-to-end by drawing together trusted experts with practical experience to build a collective understanding of the change process – and importantly help you to identify and address any blind spots. The use of a framework can help this thinking to be systematic and simulation or scenario exercises can be particularly helpful.
3. Build coalitions not concerns. Evidence collation is an opportunity to build a coalition for implementation. Consider who needs to be convinced, what evidence they are looking for, and how that evidence speaks to the genuine problems that they are actually facing. Disruptive innovation is alienating for those being disrupted, so work with early adopters to develop practical ‘how to’ examples; use trusted opinion leaders to amplify communication; and engage with royal colleges, patient groups, clinical bodies and other key stakeholders as early as possible.
4. Ensure there is demand not just supply. Think how to create system ‘pull’. Work first where there is already natural demand for change; and consider the range of incentives that will help your project to stand out against the competing demands of other system requirements, or – even better – support the delivery of those other priorities. Where possible find ways to share the accountability for implementation with system leaders, and delivery organisations.
5. Link policy to problem-solving. Anticipate and reduce barriers to implementation; and work closely with early adopters, commissioners and policy makers to solve problems together. Initial policy can be turned into early practice, but early practice must then refine policy. For example, this might include payments and funding rules, regulatory permissions, or planning guidance inclusion. Keep iterating so that impact influences policy which then influences impact and so on.
6. Amplify the signal against the noise. Radical change and innovation can happen quickly, but is rarely the norm. We shouldn’t expect widespread uptake at speed where conditions don’t require, support, or allow it. However uptake can be best amplified when NHS priorities align with
More from The Briefing Room - Ministry of Health Tech
We're reflecting on the findings of the national commission on AI regulation and digging into the government's red flag rating on the NHS Frontline Productivity Programme. Plus, if your health tech org needs an autumn glow-up, find out how to overthrow the management and turn it into a holacracy. And the big news you've all been waiting for, where and when is the xmas party and "The Healthies" inaugural awards being held? Recorded live at the HETT Show 2026 where we were pegging delegates.
Welcome back from the summer break - you probably noticed a new administration has crept in the back door and got their feet under the table, and we haven’t talked about it much whilst we’ve been off having fun on our big Summer tour. So, we’re catching-up on the news of the last three months across key health tech themes like ambient scribes, the NHS app and virtual wards, plus the new PM and the great debacle of Palantir and the Federated Data Platform. Can’t say for sure whether any pigs were harmed in the making of this episode.
What is actually happening with the Neighbourhoods Programme? We've heard about it endlessly and it's constantly top of the agenda, but what changes can already be seen on the ground? What's been the impact on staff and patients so far? What's still to come and how clear is the execution plan? We're live at alternative conference AireFest26 in Leeds to investigate, and its the ideal opportunity to ban buzzphrases, policy speak and strategy gobbledy-gook to ask why will this work and how would you explain it in everyday Mum language? Joined by programme leads, digital activists, GPs and more, we're lifting the lid on the whole thing as well as blasting out everyone's favourite royalty-free cover music across the City from our rooftop podcast studio in the sun.
It's out! Grab a cup of tea and cookie - it's a special feature length episode as we drive to HLTH Europe, Amsterdam. Join a stellar cast from across the best of British health tech as we circumnavigate pirates, sailors, starlings, cyclists, mystery boxes and dutch pronunciation to reach our rustic bedroomless houseboat, throw a party with Digital Care, sail the River Amstel and attend Europe's largest health innovation event. It's been a year since our last visit - so what exactly has changed in the industry and, in the wake of recent seismic turbulence in the NHS, what are people's hopes and dreams for the next 12 months in health tech?
With Wes Streeting’s departure as Health and Social Care Secretary and the situation over Palantir’s access to patient records going nuclear, we’ve got a bumper episode for you. We’re joined by the HSJ to go back to the beginning with the Federated Data Platform debacle and, with agentic AI for health offers booming from all the big players, Director of Health Policy at the Tony Blair Institute, Dr Charlotte Refsum, talks about who’s controlling the front door to the NHS. Whilst the centre continues to wobble we look at how communities and peer groups are stepping up to lead the innovation charge. Plus, event season is here and, with Confed Expo, HLTH Europe and a trip to the seaside right around the corner, we have a lot to plan for.