The NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) features in The Times business pages alongside 2017 Fellow, Melissa Morris, CEO of Lantum.
Hannah Prevett’s article offers an in-depth look at some of the entrepreneurs innovating successfully inside and outside the NHS, including 2017 Fellow, Melissa, and NIA Co-Founder, Mahiben Maruthappu.
“Mr Maruthappu co-founded the NHS Innovation Accelerator in 2015. The 11 promising entrepreneurs, or fellows, that form this year’s cohort (of which Ms Morris is one) each receive a bursary of £20,000, a personal development plan and introductions to key decision-makers within the NHS.
“Mr Maruthappu explains: “[Entrepreneurs] don’t know who to approach in the alphabet soup of the NHS. Is it trusts? Is it GPs? Is it community centres? Is it the councils? Who do they need to be approaching in this entire ecosystem to get their innovation taken up and scaled?”
“Now in its third year, the accelerator is showing signs of promise: among the 37 innovations supported across three cohorts, £40 million of funding has been raised, 114 new jobs created, 29 awards won and, crucially, 964 additional NHS sites are now using its innovations.”
