A Tayside health initiative has launched a search for medical technologies that could bring health and care closer to communities and reduce health inequalities.
Tay Health Tech has announced a fund of around £1 million for innovations that will directly benefit the Tayside region – and is inviting funding applications.
The call specifically focuses on technologies or devices that could help patients be treated in their homes or local communities – for example community clinics or social clubs – rather than in big centralised hospitals, which can sometimes be difficult for patients to get to.
Any researchers at the partnership’s university and Tayside NHS partners can apply for funding, with successful submissions getting support to develop and commercialise their projects.
Tay Health Tech is led by Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and the University of Dundee, in collaboration with NHS Tayside Innovation, which supports innovators in the healthcare system, and Dundee City Council. These partners and another three universities from the Tay Health Tech consortium – University of St Andrews, University of Glasgow and Edinburgh Napier University – are included in the funding call.
“By helping to develop and commercialise new healthcare technologies, we want to move health and care closer to communities, making it more accessible to everyone and preventing unnecessary visits to the hospital,” said Professor Marc Desmulliez, a medical devices engineer and manufacturing technology expert at Heriot-Watt University’s School of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
“For example, in rural parts of Tayside, the nearest hospital can be many miles away and only reachable for people with easy access to transport. Healthcare innovations – for example, a device that could help patients with rehabilitation at home – can potentially remove this inequality and also help clinical staff by reducing hospital visits.”
Professor Michael MacDonald, a biomedical photonics expert at the University of Dundee’s Centre for Medical Engineering and Technology, said: “We’re excited to be launching this call for innovations that can help us transform healthcare delivery in Tayside. Our long-term goal is to improve how patients experience healthcare, by decentralising healthcare delivery, and also reduce pressure on the NHS.”
The call for funding applications follows a series of workshops with NHS Tayside patients in Dundee, Perth, Arbroath and Cupar Angus. These covered disadvantaged, affluent, city and rural areas and focused on lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes and substance use.
Patient feedback from the workshops helped the Tay Health Tech team identify four ‘Grand Challenges’ that underpin the funding call. These are Hospital at Home, Rehabilitation, Testing, and Prevention and Prognostics.
Researchers in the Tay Health Tech consortium are being invited to apply for funding to further develop medical devices targeting these areas. For example, to enable at-home testing, support rehabilitation exercises, help to maintain positive mental health, or remote monitoring that flags when expert oversight is needed. The aim is to reduce hospital visits and bring more care into the community or home.
Two levels of funding are available. The first level is for smaller, shorter projects that need funding, for example, to support proof of market or proof of concept stages. The second level of funding is for larger, longer projects of up to two years that will take a project to a higher technology readiness level through further development.
Professor Desmulliez added: “We are looking for existing outputs from engineering and physical sciences research that can be applied to community healthcare – rather than ideas for new technologies. It’s all about accelerating the impact that these devices and technologies can make for communities. We think researchers will have current projects, but also maybe research they’ve worked on previously – that could open exciting new possibilities in community-based patient care.”
Funding application forms are available on the Tay Health Tech website.
Tay Health Tech’s other consortium partners are Dundee City Council, Angus Council, Dundee and Angus College, healthcare innovation partnership InnoScot Health, life sciences partnership BioDundee, medical research specialist SHARE, Scotland’s business advice, support and funding agency, Scottish Enterprise, and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) – the UK’s national funding agency for investing in science and research.
Tay Health Tech is a place-based impact project funded by UKRI’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
Heriot-Watt University has established a Global Research Institute in Health and Care Technologies to turn cutting-edge research into impactful and practical solutions that will have a positive impact on peoples’ lives, on the NHS and on health and care globally.
