Executive Chair of InnoScot Health, Graham Watson considers best approaches for long-term gains

If, as Health Secretary Angela Constance recently put it, “the status quo is not an option” amid sustained inequalities being experienced across Scotland, then collaborative healthcare innovation and patient-centric design to best inform it are the levellers we need.

In the rush for advancement that produces immediate, measurable change, it can be easy to overlook a crucial point — that one of the key drivers behind transformative thinking must remain democratising access to put health decisions directly into the hands of the individual.

As is the case in any sector, the end user’s needs must be front of mind from the outset with proposed changes rigorously tested to meet accessibility demands, or a possible outcome is that they may not be effective in the long-term.

That must particularly be the case when, as Ms Constance noted, “the deep-rooted inequal­it­ies that determ­ine whether someone in one part of Scot­land lives more than a dec­ade longer than someone in another com­munity have not gone away”.

Responding to that significant concern amid ongoing financial challenges, she laid out her priorities for reform including shifting the balance of care to the community to treat patients closer to home and relieve pressure on acute hospitals; prevention to help stop health issues from escalating into complex crises; and modernising primary care to encompass initiatives like further new GP walk-in centres.

She also pinpointed the need to embrace reform in order to meet the needs of an older population with ever more complex needs.

All of that is of course correct, proportionate, and essential to positive, meaningful change.

I would however add that innovation focused on delivering a positive return on investment and driven by strong, collaborative partnerships built across the ‘triple helix’ of NHS, industry, and academia, is what links and underpins all of those ambitions as we look to create a more equitable, healthier, and financially sustainable Scotland.

Adopting a strategy of co-creating solutions through the pooling of multidisciplinary expertise and end user feedback ensures that breakthroughs can be rapidly translated into scalable and equitable clinical tools.

As Ms Constance says, “Scot­land has the tal­ent, the innov­a­tion and the com­mit­ment across its work­force to meet this moment” — but it is also clear that the net must be cast wider to tap into more partners, complemented by a collective commitment to bringing down barriers to collaboration and accessibility.

Yes, the NHS workforce has knowledge and experience in abundance and can be the vital spark of inspiration which ignites new healthcare ideas directly stemming from clinical challenges.

Nevertheless, innovation cannot happen in isolation. Those inspirational ideas need comprehensive support to reach their full potential and thrive — they need knowledge exchange, diverse perspectives, resources, and infrastructure if they are to be fully developed and commercialised.

InnoScot Health believes that Scotland’s interconnected innovation ecosystem is particularly vital to overcoming current health and social care challenges.

While it is no surprise that the Health Secretary is prioritising prevention — what she rightly calls “one of the most cost-effect­ive inter­ven­tions a health sys­tem can make” — further crucial steps must be taken to ensure there is no ‘one size fits all’ model of care.

As the clear direction of travel, prevention must be maximised if we are to successfully make the leap from a system weighed down by recurring reactive challenges, to one that detects disease early, personalises treatment plans for optimised effectiveness, and eases the significant pressures being placed on local services.

Innovative tools must therefore be leveraged, from remote monitoring to genomics and AI as part of a better joined up system which identifies the right collaborative expertise to help turn ideas into trusted, everyday reality.

Fundamentally, we need solutions that directly target structural disparities and ensure that underrepresented communities have equal access to quality care.

In other words, innovation must be dictated not by what is perceived by its developers to be effective, but by what is genuinely effective for all. Approaches to achieving that must therefore include testing AI to eliminate algorithmic bias, ensuring community co-production, and expanding telehealth to remote regions.

Innovation seen through the prism of equality is essential for improving patient outcomes, reducing administrative burdens on staff, and lowering systemic costs — and Scotland must heed the call.