Health Technologies Adoption and Acceleration Fund (HTAAF)
Increasing clinical effectiveness across the South West through the deployment of new technologies. Programme now closed
Programme
overview
- Nine innovative technologies deployed across primary, secondary and community care settings.
- Enhanced digital access, creating new at-home care and diagnostic pathways, and easing pressure on acute services.
- Hundreds of patients across the South West benefitted from digital tools.
Partners involved
- Cornwall and Isles of Scilly ICB, Devon ICB, and Somerset ICB collectively secured successful funding bids, leading to local deployment projects for each ICB.
- Health Innovation South West facilitated collaboration across all three ICB bids provided vital support for the deployment of the technologies, collate metrics and assess the impact.
Project
detail
The South West has seen some of the lowest levels of investment in health care research and innovation. Our region received less than 7% (6.7%) of the total R&D expenditure budget for the UK (2019). Health spending per person is estimated at 2% below UK average.
In October 2023, HTAAF announced that it would offer ICBs the opportunity to access national funding for technology deployment that would support key priorities such as elective care recovery, virtual wards uptake and increases in clinical effectiveness.
Health Innovation South West facilitated an ICB collaboration across NHS Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall & Isles of Scilly to secure HTAAF funding in a regionally aligned approach, focused on transforming models of care to enable at-home management, drive operational efficiencies, support the workforce, and embed more preventive approaches into everyday practice.
Nine technologies were adopted across the South West, ranging from AI-enabled risk stratification tools to virtual wards point-of-care diagnostics, and remote monitoring. Benefits have included improved access, improved operational efficiency, higher staff confidence, improved patient management and enhanced patient and staff engagement, demonstrating the power of coordinated digital health deployment.
Five of the nine technology deployments were subject to detailed evaluation by Health Innovation South West, including a pilot of point of care testing in the Virtual Wards and Hospital@Home pathways in Somerset Foundation Trust and Devon University Hospitals Plymouth, usability and feasibility evaluation of cardiac wearables in Royal Devon and Exeter, and formative evaluation of AI risk stratification tool BRAVE AI in Cornwall. Implementation and evaluation of BRAVE AI was in collaboration with the NHS England South West Digital Neighbourhoods Programme.
As well as helping to redesign care delivery, the joint deployment demonstrated that digitally enabled care transformation depends as much on relationships and cultural readiness as on technology itself, and highlights the value of regional insight in adapting digital technologies across care pathways.
Impact from this work
- An estimated 400 patients have benefited from new digital tools since roll-out began.
- AI risk stratification tool live in engaged PCNs in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is enabling proactive and personalised care, with a reported 30% improvement in integrated working.
- Point of care testing (PoCT) enhanced clinical decision-making and patient care in Devon and Somerset as part of their Hospital@Home, Virtual Ward, and Urgent Community Response pathways:
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- 60% of results were interpreted within 10 minutes, 80% of cases avoided additional visits due to immediate diagnostic feedback, and 97.5% of staff reported increased confidence in decision-making, in a pilot involving 40 patients in Somerset.
- PoCT was used in nine out of ten home visits in Devon, with results available in under three minutes. It enabled timely medication adjustments, reduced travel, supported shared decisions with patients
Next steps
Insights will inform scale-up plans and future investment, while regional coordination is recommended to resolve digital integration challenges and systemic data and governance barriers.
