The NHS Innovation Service has now supported more than 2,000 innovations
On 10 September 2026, the NHS Innovation Service announced that more than 2,000 healthcare innovations had received access to tailored support since the service launched in July 2022.
The pipeline is not small:
- 404 innovations relate to mental health
- 338 to cardiovascular health
- 277 to cancer
- 248 to maternity
- more than 1,000 are helping digitise the health system
- 965 relate to prevention
- 353 support the shift from hospital to community care
The service now brings together 12 support organisations and is designed as a central front door into expertise spanning evidence, regulation, procurement, adoption and commercialization.
Source: NHS Innovation Service, 10 September 2026
https://innovation.nhs.uk/news/2000-innovations-supported-through-the-nhs-innovation-service/
That sounds like an unusually well-developed innovation ecosystem.
It is.
But there is an important commercial distinction:
ACCESS TO THE NHS INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM IS NOT THE SAME AS ACCESS TO AN NHS BUDGET.
An Innovation Record can get a founder to the right support.
An NIHR programme can help generate evidence.
MHRA can clarify a regulatory route.
DTAC can help demonstrate digital assurance.
A procurement framework can create a compliant purchasing route.
A Health Innovation Network can help support adoption and spread.
But none of those, by itself, guarantees a contract.
That is why I built the NHS HealthTech Founder Tube Map 2026 around a different question:
Which station is currently blocking your next commercial milestone?
First: this is not one official linear NHS pathway
The visual is a commercialization map, not an official NHS process diagram.
HealthTech products do not all travel through every station in the same order.
A low-risk workflow SaaS product, an AI medical device, an IVD, a surgical device and a service redesign will face different requirements.
Some routes are mandatory.
Some are conditional.
Some are competitive funding opportunities.
Some are support programmes.
Some are procurement mechanisms.
And some are only relevant once the product has already generated meaningful evidence.
That distinction is important because one of the biggest founder mistakes is solving gates that are not yet blocking revenue.
The six commercial layers I use are:
DISCOVER → FUND → VALIDATE → ASSURE → BUY → SCALE
Find the NHS Station Blocking Your Next Contract
Score your route across discovery, funding, validation, assurance, buying and scale. Then quantify what pathway delay could cost your runway before you increase NHS outreach.
1. Company + NHS Economics
Use conservative estimates. The goal is to see whether the next bottleneck is technical, evidential, regulatory, commercial or adoption-related.
2. Score the Six NHS Stations
Score current evidence, not ambition. The lowest station often matters more than the average.
3. Founder / Investor Risk Flags
These are the issues most likely to turn NHS activity into commercial delay.
4. 30-Day Action Plan
Fix the blocking station rather than adding more generic NHS activity.
Ready for buyers, not another general NHS map?
The HealthTech Buyer Pipeline Sprint converts the pathway into a concentrated commercial universe: 25 priority NHS buyers / partners and 15 relevant decision-makers mapped around your product, evidence, assurance status, pathway, KPI and procurement timing.
The objective is not to “complete the map.”
It is to identify the next constraint.
1. DISCOVER
The question: What does the product actually need next?
The NHS Innovation Service is now the most logical starting point for many innovators who are unsure which part of the system they need.
It is a free, centralised front door for innovations that may be purchased or adopted by the NHS.
The process is relatively straightforward:
- Create an account
- Complete an Innovation Record
- Submit it for a needs assessment
- Get matched with relevant support organisations
- Keep the record updated as the innovation progresses
The Innovation Service says its purpose is to provide:
- tailored support
- expert connections
- adoption-readiness advice
- increased visibility
But it also explicitly says what it does not do:
- it does not directly fund the product
- it does not guarantee NHS uptake
- it does not build the product
- it does not manage regulation or business strategy for the founder
Source: NHS Innovation Service
https://innovation.nhs.uk/about-the-service/
That final distinction matters commercially.
The Innovation Service can tell you where support exists. It does not replace a GTM strategy.
The 12 organisations around the Innovation Service
As of September 2026, the organisations shown by the service include:
- Health Innovation Network
- Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, MHRA
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, NICE
- National Institute for Health and Care Research, NIHR
- Health Research Authority, HRA
- NHS Supply Chain
- Department for Business and Trade
- Scottish Health Technologies Group
- Health Technology Wales
- Life Sciences Hub Wales
- NHS England
- HSCNI Industry Engagement
Source:
https://innovation.nhs.uk/about-the-service/
For a founder, the value is not simply that these organisations exist.
It is that the needs assessment can help route an innovation toward the relevant expertise rather than forcing the founder to navigate the entire system alone.
Health Innovation Wessex says the needs-assessment team aims to assess an Innovation Record within 10 working days and then provide tailored advice and referrals.
Source:
https://innovation.nhs.uk/news/meet-the-support-organisation-health-innovation-network/
Commercial implication
If you do not yet know whether your primary constraint is:
evidence, regulation, procurement, adoption or commercial fit
then the first mistake is usually spending more on outbound sales.
Diagnose the constraint first.
2. FUND
The question: Which funding mechanism actually removes your next development or adoption risk?
Founders often treat grants as a parallel fundraising activity.
In HealthTech, the more useful question is:
Which grant or support programme buys down a risk that a future NHS buyer or investor actually cares about?
That might be:
- technical feasibility
- clinical evidence
- real-world evaluation
- health economics
- implementation
- pathway redesign
- adoption support
SBRI Healthcare
SBRI Healthcare remains an important route for challenge-led innovation.
In oncology, for example, the NHS Cancer Programme Innovation Open Call Round 4 launched on 1 June 2026 to support mature innovations that can help deliver National Cancer Plan ambitions.
The call is designed around real-world implementation and evaluation rather than simply early discovery.
Source:
https://sbrihealthcare.co.uk/nhs-cancer-programme/overview
Its eligibility rules reinforce an important commercial lesson.
Applicants to the real-world implementation and evaluation fund need a demonstrable partnership with an NHS organisation in England and an independent evaluation partner, with engagement with Cancer Alliances and Health Innovation Networks encouraged.
Source:
https://sbrihealthcare.co.uk/nhs-cancer-programme/faqs-nhs-cancer-programme-innovation-open-call-4
Founder lesson
The stronger funding applications often already contain the beginnings of a commercialization system:
NHS partner + evaluation + evidence + route to implementation
That is much more useful than grant funding disconnected from a buyer pathway.
NIHR i4i FAST
The 2026 NIHR Invention for Innovation Funding At the Speed of Translation, i4i FAST, opportunity offered £50,000 to £100,000 for real-world integration of preventive technologies into community care.
Eligible technologies had to be at least TRL 5.
Source:
https://hrc-techeval.nihr.ac.uk/nihr-i4i-fast-april-2026/
Again, this is not generic startup funding.
It is designed around translation.
That should change how a founder thinks about ROI.
Do not ask:
How much non-dilutive capital can I win?
Ask:
Which commercial uncertainty will this capital remove?
The £100K Primary and Social Care Accelerator
In 2026, the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in In Vitro Diagnostics launched a six-month Primary and Social Care Accelerator.
Selected companies receive:
- £100,000 in expert consultancy and advice
- a two-day boot camp
- eight masterclasses
- a dedicated clinical mentor
- a direct pitch to 80+ NHS clinicians and commissioners
- investor introductions
- no equity taken
The cohort was capped at 10 companies.
For an early-stage company, the commercial value is not simply “£100K.”
It is the combination of:
clinical validation + commissioner exposure + adoption design + evidence planning
That is much harder to recreate independently.
3. VALIDATE
The question: What evidence does the future buyer actually need?
This may be the most misunderstood station.
A founder can have:
- a published study
- excellent user feedback
- a clinician champion
- a successful pilot
and still have insufficient evidence for adoption.
Because evidence requirements depend on:
- intended use
- risk
- product category
- buyer
- clinical pathway
- payment model
- implementation burden
The commercial goal is not “more evidence.”
It is:
decision-grade evidence
NIHR HealthTech Research Centres
England now has 14 NIHR HealthTech Research Centres, each focused on specialist areas of HealthTech development and evaluation.
The network reported that, in 2024/25, the HRCs supported:
- 468 projects
- 562 industry collaborations
- £92.5M of funding leveraged
The centres are funded through more than £40M of NIHR support over five years.
Source:
https://hrc-network.nihr.ac.uk/
The HRCs explicitly support medical-device, digital-health and diagnostics companies with:
- development
- evaluation
- validation
- real-world evidence
- health-economic evidence
- operational-efficiency evidence
Source:
https://www.hrc-devices.nihr.ac.uk/about-us/nihr-hrc-programme/
Commercial implication
This is where a founder should connect evidence design to the future purchase decision.
For example:
A workforce product should not stop at clinical acceptability.
It may need to demonstrate:
hours released × staff cost × capacity created
A diagnostic may need:
diagnostic accuracy + pathway change + downstream resource impact
A digital workflow product may need:
adoption + time saved + interoperability + system cost
Evidence should answer the buyer's objection.
Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement
PPIE should also not be treated as a box-ticking exercise.
Good patient and public involvement can change:
- product design
- acceptability
- study endpoints
- implementation
- health-inequality considerations
For founders, this matters because poor user fit can create a hidden commercialization problem long after the regulatory work is complete.
HRA
If the evidence plan becomes research, the Health Research Authority can help clarify the approvals required.
The HRA describes its role in the NHS Innovation Service as helping innovators understand whether they need:
- NHS Research Ethics Committee opinion
- HRA and Health and Care Research Wales approval
- Confidentiality Advisory Group support
- MHRA approval for device or medicinal-product research
- other relevant approvals
Source:
https://innovation.nhs.uk/news/meet-the-support-organisation-health-research-authority/
The founder shortcut is simple:
Design the evidence route before recruiting the first evaluation site.
Otherwise the pilot can generate data that is clinically interesting but commercially unusable.
NICE Evidence Standards Framework
For digital health technologies, the NICE Evidence Standards Framework is another useful planning tool.
NICE says the ESF is intended to improve consistency when digital technologies are evaluated and to help both commissioners and developers understand what evidence may be needed.
The commercial point is not “get NICE.”
It is:
understand the evidence bar before spending runway producing evidence.
4. ASSURE
The question: Can the buyer safely and legally deploy the product?
This is where many digital-health deals slow down.
And in 2026, several assurance routes changed.
DTAC changed in 2026
NHS England refreshed the Digital Technology Assessment Criteria, DTAC, in February 2026.
The new form has:
- 25% fewer questions
- reduced duplication with the DSPT and pre-acquisition questionnaire
- clearer guidance
- confirmed alignment with the NICE definition of digital health technologies
The previous DTAC form was retired from 6 April 2026.
DTAC covers five areas:
- clinical safety
- data protection
- technical security
- interoperability
- usability and accessibility
Source:
https://nhsd-proxy.openprescribing.net/services/digital-technology-assessment-criteria-dtac
This matters because DTAC is not simply a document you complete at the end of product development.
It is much cheaper to build the requirements into the product earlier.
DSPT
The Data Security and Protection Toolkit remains relevant for organisations accessing NHS patient data and systems.
It is a self-assessment against the National Data Guardian's 10 data-security standards.
Source:
https://www.dsptoolkit.nhs.uk/
For founders, the commercial insight is straightforward:
security debt becomes sales-cycle debt.
If information governance is unresolved when procurement begins, the buyer may have to wait while the company catches up.
DCB0129 and DCB0160
The clinical-safety standards remain fundamental.
- DCB0129 applies clinical-risk-management requirements to manufacturers of health IT systems
- DCB0160 applies to health organisations deploying and using those systems
NHS England states that compliance is mandatory in the relevant contexts under the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
The standards are currently being reviewed, with a public consultation launched in June 2026.
Sources:
https://digital.nhs.uk/services/clinical-safety/clinical-risk-management-standards
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/information-standards/governance/latest-activity/standards-and-collections/review-of-digital-clinical-safety-standards-dcb0129-and-dcb0160
Founder lesson
Do not wait until the NHS customer asks for the clinical safety case.
Build the documentation system while the product evolves.
MHRA and AI Airlock
If the product is a medical device, MHRA requirements may apply depending on intended purpose and classification.
For AI as a Medical Device, the regulatory ecosystem is also becoming more active.
In April 2026, MHRA secured £3.6M over three years, 2026–2029, to expand AI Airlock, its regulatory sandbox for AIaMD.
AI Airlock is not a universal gate that every AI startup must pass.
It is a selective regulatory sandbox.
That distinction matters.
The practical question is:
Does your intended use make you a medical device, and what evidence and regulatory work follows from that classification?
ICO
Data protection is another parallel requirement, not a late-stage afterthought.
The Information Commissioner's Office continues to operate innovation support and sandbox work around data protection.
For a founder selling into the NHS, the relevant commercial issue is not simply GDPR compliance.
It is whether the buying organisation can confidently approve the product's data flows.
5. BUY
The question: Who can actually procure it, and which route matches the product?
This is where the map becomes much less linear.
There is no single universal NHS purchasing door.
Potential routes can involve:
- NHS trusts
- Integrated Care Boards
- NHS Supply Chain
- NHS Shared Business Services
- NHS London Procurement Partnership
- existing framework agreements
- dynamic purchasing systems
- local procurement
- national programmes
The correct route depends on the product and buyer.
NHS Supply Chain
NHS Supply Chain is one of the organisations behind the NHS Innovation Service.
It says its role is to provide a legally compliant procurement route and help identify how innovations can enter NHS purchasing systems.
Source:
https://www.supplychain.nhs.uk/suppliers/product-innovation/nhs-innovation-service/
For some medical technologies, the Medical Technology Innovation Dynamic Purchasing System may be relevant.
Unlike a fixed framework, the DPS allows new suppliers to join throughout a seven-year period.
That is commercially important.
A founder may not need to wait years for a framework to reopen if an appropriate dynamic route exists.
But procurement eligibility is not the same as buyer demand.
NHS London Procurement Partnership
NHS LPP currently lists routes including:
- Clinical Digital Health Solutions
- Health & Social Care Apps DPS
- Implementation Support for Digital Health Systems DPS
- Digital Technical Clinical Support
- other digital and technology frameworks
Source:
https://www.lpp.nhs.uk/framework-agreements/
Again:
a framework is a route to buy, not a reason to buy.
The product still needs:
- an economic owner
- budget
- evidence
- implementation capacity
- procurement timing
MedTech Funding Mandate: important 2026 nuance
The MedTech Funding Mandate, MTFM, remains live in 2026/27.
However, NHS England says that while the policy is being reviewed, no new products will be added to MTFM for 2026/27.
Existing eligible products remain supported.
Source:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/aac/what-we-do/how-can-the-aac-help-me/the-medtech-funding-mandate/
This is exactly why founders should avoid building GTM plans around old assumptions.
Routes change.
Policy changes.
Eligibility changes.
A good NHS commercialization strategy needs to be current.
6. SCALE
The question: Can one NHS win become ten?
This is where many founders discover that a successful pilot was not actually a scalable commercial asset.
England's 15 Health Innovation Networks exist to support adoption and spread.
Their current national impact figures are substantial:
- 7M patients benefited
- more than 740,000 hours of healthcare staff capacity released
- more than £4.4B contributed to the UK economy through companies supported
- more than 12,600 jobs created or safeguarded
- 3,000+ innovations in the national pipeline
Source: Health Innovation Network 2026/27
https://thehealthinnovationnetwork.co.uk/
The network also reports that innovator support continues to deliver a roughly 3:1 return on investment, calculated using HM Treasury Green Book methodology.
These numbers are important because they demonstrate that the adoption layer is not just startup support.
It is an economic and productivity mechanism.
NHS Innovation Accelerator
The NHS Innovation Accelerator, NIA, sits further toward the scale end of the journey.
It is not designed for an unvalidated idea.
Its eligibility criteria include proven real-world results, evidence of better outcomes at lower cost and readiness for wider NHS adoption.
Source:
https://nhsaccelerator.com/faqs/
The programme's ten-year impact report says that, since 2015, it has supported:
- 140 evidence-based innovations
- more than 10M patients
- 3,500 NHS sites
- more than £243M raised by fellows
Source:
https://nhsaccelerator.com/insights/nhs-innovation-accelerator-marks-a-decade-of-impact/
That is why I place NIA at the scale end of the map.
A founder should not ask:
How do I get into NIA?
before answering:
Have we proved enough that wider adoption is now the real problem?
The biggest commercialization mistake: optimizing the wrong station
The tube-map analogy is useful because founders frequently work on a station that is not blocking progress.
Examples:
Founder A
Keeps applying for grants.
Actual blocker:
no economic buyer
Founder B
Keeps collecting clinical evidence.
Actual blocker:
no procurement route
Founder C
Keeps approaching trusts.
Actual blocker:
DTAC / data assurance not ready
Founder D
Has an NHS pilot.
Actual blocker:
no agreed post-pilot budget or success threshold
Founder E
Has procurement access.
Actual blocker:
no local clinical champion or implementation capacity
That is why the most useful question is:
WHAT MUST BECOME TRUE FOR THE NEXT CONTRACT TO HAPPEN?
Then work backward.
My 6-gate NHS commercialization model
I would score the company across six gates.
| Gate | The commercial question | Typical evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Discover | Do we know what NHS problem and pathway we are solving? | Need, pathway, stakeholder map |
| Fund | Is there capital to remove the next risk? | Grant fit, budget, runway |
| Validate | Do we have buyer-relevant evidence? | Clinical, RWE, health economics |
| Assure | Can the NHS safely deploy us? | DTAC, DSPT, DCB, MHRA where applicable |
| Buy | Is there a real buyer and compliant purchasing route? | Budget owner, framework / tender path |
| Scale | Does account one make account two easier? | Repeatability, reference, implementation assets |
The lowest score is usually more informative than the average.
That is what the free calculator is designed to expose.
The ROI problem: delay is expensive even before revenue is lost
Consider an illustrative HealthTech startup.
Assumptions
Monthly UK commercialization burn:
£35,000
Delay caused by the wrong pathway:
6 months
Pilot + integration cost:
£60,000
Expected first-year NHS contract value:
£120,000
Qualified probability of converting the opportunity:
35%
Gross margin:
75%
This is a company-level scenario, not an NHS benchmark.
ROI calculation 1: runway exposed
£35,000 × 6 months
=
£210,000
Add pilot and integration:
£210,000 + £60,000
=
£270,000 of capital exposed before a repeatable commercial route exists
That number can be much more important than the size of the grant the founder is applying for.
ROI calculation 2: probability-weighted deal economics
Expected annual contract value:
£120,000
Probability:
35%
Probability-weighted revenue:
£42,000
Apply 75% gross margin:
£31,500 probability-weighted first-year gross profit
Now compare:
£270,000 ÷ £31,500
=
8.6×
Under these assumptions, the startup has more than eight times as much capital exposed as probability-weighted first-year gross profit from the opportunity.
That does not mean NHS selling is unattractive.
It means:
the sequence matters enormously.
ROI calculation 3: what if better routing saves three months?
If better pathway planning, assurance preparation and buyer targeting removes only three months:
3 × £35,000
=
£105,000 of runway preserved
No valuation assumptions.
No invented market-share forecast.
Just time.
That is the commercial value of avoiding the wrong station.
The second ROI layer: buyer concentration
Suppose the company researches:
25 NHS buyer organisations
After scoring for:
- pathway fit
- budget ownership
- evidence fit
- assurance readiness
- procurement route
- implementation capacity
- timing
- reference value
only 32% are genuinely high-fit.
That gives:
8 priority organisations
Now assume the founder has warm senior access to only 25% of those.
That gives:
2 warm priority accounts
The problem is no longer:
We need more NHS leads.
It becomes:
We have six high-fit accounts where access to the right buyer is still missing.
That is much more actionable.
Where the free NHS Pathway Calculator fits
The accompanying dashboard scores:
DISCOVER
Need clarity, pathway fit and stakeholder understanding.
FUND
Whether the company has the right capital and funding route to remove the next risk.
VALIDATE
Clinical, real-world and health-economic evidence.
ASSURE
DTAC, data protection, clinical safety and regulatory readiness.
BUY
Economic buyer, procurement route and post-pilot budget.
SCALE
Reference portability, implementation reuse and adoption readiness.
It then calculates:
- NHS Pathway Readiness /100
- current blocking station
- runway exposed to delay
- total capital exposed
- probability-weighted first-year gross profit
- exposure / gross-profit multiple
- runway potentially preserved
- priority accounts from a 25-buyer universe
- warm priority-account coverage
- recommended next action
The score is deliberately directional.
It is not an NHS approval score.
How founders should interpret the score
Below 45 / 100
Do not increase broad NHS outreach yet.
The product has a major unresolved gate.
The dashboard should tell you whether that is:
need, evidence, assurance, buyer or scale.
45–64 / 100
There is a plausible NHS route.
But selling harder may simply create more stalled opportunities.
Fix the weakest gate first.
65–81 / 100
The company is increasingly adoption-ready.
At this point, the bottleneck often shifts toward:
buyer selection, procurement timing and post-pilot conversion.
This is where focused account intelligence becomes more valuable than another general market report.
82+ / 100
The product and pathway are comparatively mature.
Now the goal becomes:
repeatability
Can one trust or ICB win create:
- reusable evidence
- reusable assurance assets
- reusable implementation
- a recognized NHS reference
- a faster second contract?
That is the scale test.
What I would do in the next 30 days
1. Identify the blocked station
Do not work on everything.
Pick the gate that is currently preventing the next commercial decision.
2. Build a buyer-specific evidence matrix
For each target organisation, define:
- problem
- KPI
- clinical owner
- economic owner
- required evidence
- assurance requirements
- procurement route
- decision date
If you cannot fill those fields, the account is not yet qualified.
3. Separate “pilot” from “purchase”
Before a pilot begins, define:
- success threshold
- evaluation owner
- decision date
- scale budget
- contract route
- deployment unit
- post-pilot commercial terms
Otherwise the pilot can become an expensive experiment.
4. Reuse assurance work
Maintain current:
- DTAC
- DSPT evidence where applicable
- clinical safety documentation
- data-flow documentation
- DPIA materials
- regulatory evidence
Every account should not restart due diligence from zero.
5. Choose the first account for reference value
The biggest NHS trust is not necessarily the best first buyer.
A better account may provide:
- strong clinical champion
- measurable KPI
- faster procurement
- credible case study
- repeatable workflow
- regional influence
That can make the second account cheaper.
What investors should diligence
The NHS can create significant strategic value.
But I would distinguish between:
NHS ACTIVITY
and:
NHS COMMERCIAL TRACTION
Activity includes:
- Innovation Service support
- grant applications
- accelerator participation
- clinician conversations
- pilots
- HIN introductions
Commercial traction looks more like:
PAID ACCOUNT → IMPLEMENTATION → RENEWAL → MULTI-SITE → REPEATABLE PROCUREMENT
For an investor, I would ask:
Buyer ownership
Who actually controls the budget?
Pilot economics
Who pays for implementation?
Assurance debt
What still needs to be completed before another trust can deploy?
Evidence portability
Will site-one evidence influence site two?
Procurement repeatability
Does each account require a completely new route?
Implementation reuse
Does deployment two take less time than deployment one?
Renewal
Which KPI keeps the contract alive?
A founder can be highly active in the NHS ecosystem without yet having a scalable NHS business.
What NHS executives should ask innovators
This map also works from the buyer side.
Before approving another pilot, I would ask:
- Which pathway problem are we solving?
- What happens if we do nothing?
- Which staff or patient KPI changes?
- What is the baseline?
- Who owns implementation?
- What evidence exists?
- What evidence will this pilot generate?
- Is DTAC relevant and current?
- Are clinical-safety requirements understood?
- Is MHRA regulation relevant?
- What data are accessed?
- Which procurement route follows success?
- Where does the scale budget come from?
- What is the decision date?
- What does “successful pilot” mean numerically?
That last question can prevent a lot of pilot waste.
The key commercialization insight
The NHS has a strong innovation-support ecosystem.
The 2026 data makes that difficult to dispute:
- 2,000+ innovations supported through the Innovation Service
- 12 support organisations
- 15 Health Innovation Networks
- 3,000+ innovations in the HIN pipeline
- 740,000+ NHS staff hours released through HIN-supported work
- £4.4B+ contributed to the UK economy through supported companies
- 14 NIHR HealthTech Research Centres
- 468 HRC projects supported in 2024/25
- 562 HRC industry collaborations
- £92.5M HRC funding leveraged
- £3.6M committed to expand MHRA AI Airlock over 2026–2029
- up to £100K of expert support per company in the 2026 Primary and Social Care Accelerator
But those numbers lead to the wrong conclusion if founders think:
There must be one pathway through all of this.
There isn't.
The better model is:
CONSTRAINT → RIGHT PROGRAMME → RIGHT EVIDENCE → RIGHT BUYER → RIGHT PROCUREMENT ROUTE → REPEATABLE ADOPTION
Where I can help
I do not replace:
- regulatory counsel
- MHRA specialists
- HRA
- NICE
- HRC researchers
- clinical safety officers
- NHS procurement professionals
The gap I focus on is different.
It sits between:
VALIDATION → BUYER PRIORITY → COMMERCIAL CONVERSION
A founder can have:
- valid evidence
- a completed DTAC
- a successful NHS pilot
- an excellent clinical champion
and still have no repeatable pipeline.
Why?
Because the commercial questions remain unanswered:
- Which NHS organisations should we prioritize?
- Which one actually has the problem now?
- Who owns the relevant KPI?
- Who owns the budget?
- Which stakeholder can champion the deal?
- Which procurement route is realistic?
- What evidence will unlock the decision?
- Which account creates the best reference for the next one?
That is where market intelligence becomes useful.
The HealthTech Buyer Pipeline Sprint
Once the calculator shows that the product is sufficiently ready, the next step should not usually be another database of 500 NHS contacts.
The HealthTech Buyer Pipeline Sprint maps:
25 priority buyers / partners + 15 relevant decision-makers
around the company's actual:
- product category
- target pathway
- evidence
- regulatory status
- assurance readiness
- commercial stage
- buyer KPI
- procurement timing
- pilot model
The objective is not more names.
It is:
- fewer low-fit accounts
- better buyer ownership
- less founder time wasted
- clearer commercial hypotheses
- stronger outreach relevance
- faster learning around real NHS objections
Product:
https://growthvybz.com/products/healthtech-buyer-pipeline-sprint-25-buyers-15-decision-makers
The NHS route I would use
Not every company needs every station.
But the commercial logic is:
DISCOVER → FUND → VALIDATE → ASSURE → BUY → SCALE
And underneath it:
NEED → EVIDENCE → SAFETY → BUDGET → PROCUREMENT → REPEATABILITY
That is the part I would optimize.
Because the real goal is not:
“Get into the NHS.”
It is:
