Health Launchpad
The NESTA-Young Foundation Health Launchpad is an early-stage incubator that aims to transform the way health is managed in the workplace. It develops promising ideas, designed to tackle long-term conditions, into new ventures by providing financial support, time and expertise.
The Health Launchpad team work as social entrepreneurs at the earliest stages of idea development to scope, pilot and then launch new ventures, whether commercial or not-for-profit. Its approach includes funding (in the form of grants, loans or equity) and non-financial support.
Read about the projects we're supporting through Health Launchpad.
The problem
Almost half the UK population has a long-term condition (LTC), such as depression, back pain, asthma, diabetes or epilepsy. Eighty percent of NHS spending goes on treating this. The State cannot continue to sustain the NHS without significant innovation, and a shift in the way that healthcare is delivered - from hospitals to the community.
For many people, the workplace forms the centre of their daily life. Much more, therefore, needs to be done to make work central to preventing and managing LTCs.
One-third of working days are lost due to LTCs, £11.6bn per year, but the biggest impact is on the individual and their loved ones. People with LTCs face many problems trying to live with, and manage, their condition. Some of the main problems include getting into work, being able to hold down a job and managing their condition while at work.
What types of ideas we're looking for
We are looking for radically different solutions that have the potential to transform healthcare and improve health across the country - in particular, ideas that are:
Innovative: We're looking for ideas that reflect our changing health landscape. For example, innovative patient-centred approaches to prevention, self-management, and improved quality of life.
Entrepreneurial: We believe new ideas are best served when they are coupled with an entrepreneurial approach. This means a new venture that has sustainable revenue streams, and which is scalable and/or replicable.
We're also looking for ideas that are led by service-users and their carers, and that are accessible to people from all walks of life and parts of society.
Healthcare areas that we're focussing on
We consider ventures that offer solutions to any aspect of long-term conditions. To increase our ability to identify and support great projects, we regularly identify particular themes to help focus our scouting and due diligence. In the past, our themes have included independent living for older people and putting patients in control. We are currently looking at the following areas:
- Men's health. Every day, 330 British men die before their 75th birthday. Men are more likely to be overweight than women and they are twice as likely to develop heart disease before retirement age. Men under the age of 45 visit their GP only half as often as women. They also under-use all the primary care services, including pharmacists and NHS direct, and they are less likely to seek help for mental health problems. We believe that taking an innovative approach to transforming services can help address this inequality.
- Creating better settings of care. As our definition of "health" expands beyond the mere prevention of illness to include wellbeing and the management of long-term conditions, the way we provide care and the place in which this happens will evolve. These changes will be enabled by new technologies and informed by continuing pressures on resources. We believe that innovative approaches to how and where care is provided (especially primary care) can lead to significant improvements in health.
We are particularly keen to hear about ventures that link to these two themes.
For further information about Health Launchpad, please visit www.health-innovation.org.uk.
Health Launchpad portfolio
Health Launchpad supports a range of early stage ventures. The projects below have been approved by the Health Launchpad investment committee and are being actively supported:
| kidsof.com This project aims to provide support to the millions of adults facing stress over their parents' ageing. There are significant gaps in the services provided for this group. While there are a number of services that support older people and their carers, the large group of adults who provide occasional or non-residential care to elderly parents has been overlooked. Health Launchpad believes this group is large and has a major part to play in delivering care to older people. The project proposes setting up a website to enable peer-to-peer support for the millions of adults who experience anxiety and stress over their parents' ageing. |
| Active Community Living (ACL)This programme allows people to stay in their own homes for as long as possible. Not everyone can afford in-home carers - or needs help as frequently and consistently as a carer would provide. Basic support can prevent health deterioration, accidents, isolation and depression, especially for those with long-term conditions. ACL is a social enterprise model that provides practical support to older people living in their homes, and to create a community of mutual support. |
| CBT for the elderlyThis project focuses on peer-to-peer cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), to encourage emotional resilience in older people. The organisational model hinges on training volunteers to deliver the product, with volunteers selected from retirees, who will themselves go on to benefit from these emotional resilience techniques as they age. The Health Launchpad team is currently working with Dr Chris Williams, from Glasgow University, who has developed a jargon-free CBT model (‘Living Life to the Full'), and Manchester and South Tyneside local authorities, who have agreed to run a a 6-9 month pilot. The pilot will train two initial groups of volunteers, who will then deliver a series of group sessions targeted at older people with low level anxiety and depression, many of whom will have recently undergone shocks in their life such as bereavement, illness or moving home. The pilot will be evaluated, and then rolled-out to provide a highly-scalable, cost-efficient way of dealing with emotional resilience amongst older people. |
| Plan My CareAn online solution that will empower individuals, and their helpers, to manage individual budgets and self-directed care. Plan My Care is an online solution that will empower individuals and their helpers to manage individual budgets and self-directed care. It will provide them with assistance to assess their social care needs, build support and financial plans, and to find and purchase goods and services. It will also provide facilities to help individuals, support groups and local authorities collaborate to deliver more successful outcomes. |
