Health Innovation South East Scotland NHS Hub

Health Innovation South East Scotland (HISES) is an Innovation Test Bed set up by the Scottish Government Chief Scientists’ Office which forms part of national network created to deliver the Government’s vision to utilise the innovation process to deliver a healthier and wealthier nation for the future.

Formed through a collaboration of three NHS Boards— Borders, Fife, and Lothian, with the latter taking on the role of lead host Board, HISES has a pivotal role in delivering innovative solutions to the health and social challenges, both regionally and nationally.

At the core of our approach to developing innovative solutions is doing this in collaboration with our staff, academia, industry partners and the third sector in working together to identify the problems faced by patients, staff and citizens in receiving / delivery high quality, effective and efficient health and care services—whilst also maximizing opportunities for individuals to better self-manage existing conditions as well as preventing their occurrence.

Our mission is to support and enable the future delivery of health and care services that when compared to the current provision of these are more effective, more efficient, of a higher quality (including more equitable access) and affordable within available resources.

From having developed, tested, and then evaluated these new innovative solutions within the South East Region health and care services in collaboration with our stakeholders, including our staff, – we are confident that these will then have the potential for spread not just nationally but also globally.

 Regional Innovation Hubs like HISES provide capacity and capability for the NHS to engage in innovation activity and create the conditions to support the development, delivery, and adoption of new technologies within the health and social care system.

The national network of Innovation Hubs allows innovative solutions to be tried out in a real-world environment and ensure they are fit for purpose – clinically, financially, and operationally – before being brought into wider use.

Introducing new technology, services or pathways into the NHS requires evidence to show advantage over what is currently available. It is difficult to acquire this evidence without access to patients or clinical facilities to develop and test prototypes or new models.

Innovation Hubs provide essential enabling infrastructure for industry, academia and the third sector to collaborate with the NHS, translating research into innovative products and services which can directly benefit patients and improve the NHS. They offer life science companies the opportunity to evidence the potential impact of their technology through access to expertise, governance, and technical capabilities such as trusted research environments, helping them grow by co-developing within NHS Scotland.

To allow us to translate innovative ideas into viable products or services to improve patient care, we can provide access to the following capacity to support companies on their journey.  

• Project Management

• Regulatory advice, IP, and Commercialisation

• Clinical Services

• Information Governance/NHS IT Security

• eHealth/Digital

• Academic and Clinical Central Office for Research and Development

• DataLoch – health and social care data for the South-East Scotland region

• Higher Education Institutions across South-East Scotland region including links to Medical Schools, Business Schools, Art and Design Schools, Technical Engineering Institutes, National Robotarium etc

• Edinburgh BioQuarter, co-location of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh teaching hospital, a world-renowned school of medicine, leading medical research institutes and a host of ambitious life sciences companies delivers a formidable network of clinicians, academics, scientists, and entrepreneurs.

• The Usher Institute hosts partnerships for data-driven health solutions.

• Local authorities, Health and Social Care Partnerships and Integrated Joint Boards

• Enterprise agencies