Learning from the last 10 years to inform the next decade of health innovation
At this year’s Digital Health Rewired, the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) will mark an important moment: the launch of our next cohort of fellows alongside a decade of learning about what it truly takes to scale innovation in the NHS.
Ten years ago, the NIA was founded with a clear ambition to identify the most promising innovations and help them spread across the health and care system. Since then, the landscape has shifted dramatically. Integrated Care Systems have taken shape. Digital infrastructure has matured. A global pandemic forced rapid adoption at unprecedented speed. Financial pressures have intensified, and technology has evolved.
The question we’re bringing to Rewired is simple, but critical: what has the last decade taught us and how must that shape the next one?
Over the past ten years, one lesson stands above the rest. Innovation does not scale on brilliance alone. It scales when it aligns with system priorities, when clinical leaders champion it, when evidence is robust and meaningful, and when innovators understand the realities of adoption inside complex systems, like the NHS.
Mindy Simon, Co-Director of the NIA, reflects: “The biggest shift over the last decade is that innovation is no longer peripheral to the NHS but it’s now central to its survival. Being ‘innovative’ isn’t enough. Solutions must demonstrate clear value, reduce burden on the workforce and fit into the operational fabric of the system. That’s what determines whether something spreads.”
The NHS entering its next decade looks different from the one the NIA first supported. Demand is rising, inequalities remain stark, and workforce constraints are acute. At the same time, advances in AI, remote monitoring and data analytics are expanding what’s possible in prevention, diagnosis and long-term condition management.
Jack Porter, Co-Director of the NIA, says: “We’ve learned that pace matters, but partnership matters more. The most successful Fellows are those who build deep relationships across systems with clinicians, managers, commissioners and patients. The next decade will require even stronger collaboration across national and local boundaries.”
Our panel discussion at Rewired will be a candid exploration of these realities. We will reflect on where genuine progress has been made in the NHS innovation ecosystem and where friction persists. We will examine how policy ambition can translate more consistently into frontline adoption, and what innovators must now understand about system readiness, economic evidence and long-term sustainability.
Our newest cohort of fellows will be stepping into a system that is more digitally confident than ever before, but also more financially stretched. They will need to think beyond product-market fit and focus on product-system fit, designing solutions that work not just in pilots, but at population scale.
The first decade of the NHS Innovation Accelerator proved that nationally supported innovation can spread and deliver measurable impact. The next decade must go further. It must accelerate adoption without compromising safety or equity. It must focus on prevention as much as treatment. And it must ensure that innovation serves the workforce, not adds to its burden.
The future of health innovation won’t be defined by the technologies alone. It will be defined by how effectively we learn from experience and how boldly we act on it.
