Summary

Powered by NHS England and NHS Improvement, SBRI Healthcare is a pan-government initiative aiming to bring innovation to the NHS; improve patient care and efficiency and bring economic value to the UK. Competitions are designed to address unmet NHS challenges.

In partnership with the Stroke Association, the Stroke and Technology Competition is themed to address the unmet challenges faced in stroke care. Stroke is the leading cause of disease and disability in the UK, costing the economy £26 billion a year with costs predicted to reach £91 billion by 2035. This competition takes an end-to-end approach and aims to support promising, game-changing solutions that tackle the challenges during three key areas of care:

• pre-hospital diagnosis
• rehabilitation
• life after stroke

Your proposal must:

• focus on a clear unmet need in stroke care and the proposed innovation to address it
• demonstrate the impact funding and support can have to the growth plan of your business
• outline an appropriate project plan and risk mitigation strategy
• consider patient and public involvement, committing to engagement in the project
• consider how the project tackles healthcare inequality (including demographic and geographic disparities)
• consider how the innovation contributes towards the NHS’ overall carbon neutral strategy
• identify affordability of the innovation to the NHS and wider healthcare system

Developments will be 100% funded (including VAT).

Eligibility

The competition is open to single applicants from the private, public and third sectors, including charities. Projects must have already demonstrated proof of concept as a minimum and have generated some experimental data to support the case for further development and illustrate technical feasibility (TRL3).

The competition is split into a 2-phase approach:

Phase 1: Feasibility Projects ≤ 6 months in duration, with costs ≤£100K, and starting no later than one month after award announcement (early November).

Phase 2: Further Development ≤12 months in duration, with costs ≤£1M. (Upon successful completion of Phase 1, applicants are invited to apply to Phase 2).