ARU NHS The Big Pitch Booklet

8 BigPitch The Pushing Beyond The Impossible Back in 2015, I could not possibly have imagined that an encounter with a junior doctor would be the springboard to create the world’s largest entrepreneurial training programme in healthcare. That doctor, who had just raised a seed round for his start-up, spoke eloquently to me and NHS England’s National Medical Director about his passion for medicine and entrepreneurship and his frustration at being told he could not pursue both. I was given the task to find a solution and was motivated into action at being told ‘we are losing some of our brightest, most creative minds and we need to retain them in the NHS’. Having founded four med-tech start-ups myself, raising £5 million of investment, all alongside my surgical training, I was all too aware of the challenges faced by this young medic. There was no training programme anywhere on the planet that supported both clinicians and entrepreneurs and it seemed to run against medical tradition. Many said it was an impossible dream and that ‘clinicians need to do clinical work, not be entrepreneurs’. However, tradition should be used as our guide rather than our keeper, so we pressed ahead with our mission. Tonight, is both an end of year celebration for current Clinical Entrepreneurs and a welcome event for our new fellows joining in year five. In the first four years of the programme we have recruited over 500 Clinical Entrepreneurs, transforming patient care and outcomes. Between them, 246 life science start-ups have been created, over £270m of funding has been raised, more than 30m patients and users have been impacted by the innovations, 196 clinicians been retained in the NHS (alongside pursuing their entrepreneurial aspirations) and the programme is now supporting over 4% of the Life Science companies in the UK. With the addition of this year’s cohort, the number of Clinical Entrepreneurs recruited is over 700. It is truly amazing what can happen when you empower the NHS’ most valuable asset: its staff, and encourage them to push beyond the bounds of possibility. The last year of the programme has, like everything else in our lives, been impacted by the biggest health challenge in a century. As well as the COVID-19 pandemic, it is impossible not to have been moved by the Black Lives Matters (BLM) movement which has forced societies across the world to re-examine race relations and the continued existence of discrimination in so many areas, including healthcare. Part of tonight’s celebration includes acknowledging that the Clinical Entrepreneurs form a diverse, creative and inclusive network that have gained commercial skills, knowledge and experience. During the pandemic, not only have they stepped forward in their day job, but they have also offered potential solutions to the most pressing challenges across the NHS: from test, trace and vaccination systems to novel ventilators and producing personal protective equipment (PPE). Moved to action by the BLM movement, they are creating the first charter of values for innovating in the NHS, with equality, diversity and inclusion of all at its heart. When the NHS and our nation needed them most, our Clinical Entrepreneurs rose to the challenge. As we start year five, a new chapter begins. Delivery of the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme has been commissioned to a coalition of partners, led by Anglia Ruskin University. Over the next year, we plan to (1) build on the links with our international partners and establish the programme as a global exemplar, (2) increase the support we provide to accessing funding to help seed the brightest ideas, and (3) work with our industry supporters and 250+ commercial mentors to help transform the start-ups into scale-ups. By pushing beyond the impossible, Clinical Entrepreneurs will transform patients’ lives not just in the NHS, but across the world. Professor Tony Young OBE National Clinical Lead for Innovation NHS England and NHS Improvement