Clinical documentation time cut by almost a third, patients having hospital-level care at home with virtual wards, and research powered by real-time data.
These are just some of the results shared at Innovation in Action: Kent & Medway, which took place at Maidstone Hospital this week, hosted jointly by Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust and Health Innovation Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
The event brought together health and care leaders, clinicians, digital teams, researchers, industry, patient groups and communities, to show how innovation is delivering change for staff and patients across the region.
Case studies showed how:
- AI note-taking is helping give clinical staff more time to care.
- Virtual wards are supporting better outcomes for patients and enabling hospital-level care at home.
- Hackathons and digital fellowships are building skills, confidence and an innovation culture across the NHS.
A clear theme ran throughout the evening: innovation delivers the greatest impact when it is collaborative, evidence‑led and puts people and patients first.
The trust’s innovation management plan sets out its aims to create a framework for innovation, develop and strengthen collaborative relationships, foster an innovation culture and build innovation-readiness.
An innovation strategy is being developed in collaboration with academic and NHS and social care partners, aiming to create an inclusive framework enabling all staff to be innovative and create valuable solutions to meaningful problems.
Innovation is already being supported at the trust through successes from quality improvement (QI), business development and research, including work around virtual wards which has resulted in funds for a 12-month project generating a scalable blueprint for an acute virtual ward that can be implemented across the NHS.
Chief Executive, Miles Scott said: “Innovation is critical in enabling the NHS to increase its pace and scale of change, improve patient experience and deliver better health outcomes.
The 10-Year Health Plan aims to make the NHS the most AI-enabled health system in the world, and the opportunities for innovation are not only hugely exciting, they also have the potential to be transformative for staff and for the patients we care for.”