Transformation Directorate

Get involved

The Innovation Lab roadmap is shaped by real challenges and ideas from the health and social care system, and the team at Innovation Lab want to hear from anyone working within it.

If you face a challenge that you think could be answered through innovative thinking and digital technology, or have an idea to solve a challenge, read below.

Our focus areas

We’re particularly interested in exploring challenges or receiving ideas which can:

  • reduce the burden on staff
  • help access clinical information
  • improve health and care productivity
  • provide tools to access services directly
  • improve safety across health and care systems

What is suitable?

We look for challenges and ideas that:

  • align with one or more of our focus areas
  • can’t be solved with an existing product or service
  • are based on a real need
  • affect the NHS on a large scale
  • could be solved with a digital solution

Anyone working within the English health or social care system is eligible to submit.

What isn’t suitable?

Our remit currently excludes:

  • existing innovative products and services you would like to sell to the NHS
  • projects focussed on Artificial Intelligence (see NHS AI Skunkworks)
  • big data (see NHS Analytics Unit)
  • medical devices

What we’ll ask

It will only take you a few minutes but we’ll ask:

  • about you and your role
  • questions about the challenge you’re submitting
  • how involved you’d like to be if we pursue your challenge

What do we do with your submissions?

Once you have submitted your challenge or idea, we will:

  • make sure we understand the challenge you think needs solving or idea you are proposing, if required will ask you for clarification
  • triage the submission to see if it meets our criteria - if it’s already been solved elsewhere; or if someone is already working on solving it
  • if it’s a new challenge or idea which falls within our remit, will discuss it at our bi-monthly advisory group meeting
  • either add it to the Innovation Lab roadmap, or if we are unable to pursue it, we’ll publish it on our projects page, under unsolved, to allow other innovators interested in pursuing, to try and address the need

If we work on your challenge or idea, we will involve you as much or as little as you wish.

Once shared we’ll keep you updated and aim to provide an initial response within 3 weeks.

We aren't currently accepting submissions of challenges or ideas.