NHS Trust launches innovation programme which includes UK’s largest study of wearable tech
An NHS Foundation Trust has launched a new innovation programme which aims to improve patient care and address some of the largest problems in the healthcare sector.
The CW Innovation programme, led by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and its charity CW+, seeks to evaluate and integrate new initiatives and technologies to transform patient care, including exploring the importance of wearables.
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and CW+ have been developing a raft of innovation projects to be rolled out across the Trust and disseminated throughout the NHS stakeholder network.
Examples include the UK’s largest study of wearable monitoring technology; the UK’s first cancer clinic of its kind, fast-tracking patients with clinical suspicions of cancer; and the Mum & Baby app.
“CW Innovation is designed to connect the frontline clinical and operational staff and partner organisations, both in and outside of the NHS. We strongly believe it will lead to improvements in the care we provide to our patients and the way we run our hospitals,” said Lesley Watts, Chief Executive of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. “With over 70 projects in our pipeline, an increasing number of external partners and a growing innovation team, we are excited to officially launch CW Innovation today.”
By delivering a portfolio of evaluated, real-world projects, CW Innovation will be the only programme of its kind in a UK acute hospital setting and a unique resource bridging the public and commercial healthcare sectors.
Dr Zoë Penn, Chief Medical Officer at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, commented: “We are proud to have been at the forefront of innovation with a long list of hospital ‘firsts’ in emergency care, brain tumour extraction, breast cancer chemotherapy, HIV diagnosis and anaesthetics, to name but a few.
“We look forward to building on this culture of innovation to continue to deliver first class patient care through sector-leading innovation.”