How could NHS Innovator Passports impact recruitment?
Cutting red tape in the NHS sounds great doesn't it?
That's exactly what the new 'innovator passports' are set to do. Looking to be rolled out in the next couple of years under the NHS 10-Year Health Plan, these passports are designed to help get cutting edge tech and treatments approved more quickly. Put simply, the changes mean if one NHS organisation has assessed and approved some new tech, it can be easily put in place in others. The hope is that not only will this positively impact patients, but will also get more cutting-edge tech into NHS environments quickly.
This is great for hospitals and patients, but what does it mean for medical device companies who are trying to get their products into clinical settings? Let's take a look at it from a recruitment perspective.
Who might companies need to hire more of?
The Innovator Passport concept is all about rolling life-changing products out with speed. And with speed of the essence, medical device companies are likely to want to scale faster in light of these changes. This is likely to mean more hiring into Commercial or Market Access teams. By boosting headcount and skills in these areas, companies are able to more rapidly build businesses cases that could help them get more uptake across the NHS. These roles are also likely to involve liaison with NHS stakeholders too, to really get to grips with the pathways under the new approach.
This is also a good time for companies to add Health Economics Specialists to their team. This doesn't have to be a role in and of itself, but these skills are a useful extra string in a Market Access team's bow. Health Economics in this context is all about supporting business cases by producing things like budget impact documentation and cost-effective product evidence.
Companies may also want to consider hiring more Implementation and Clinical Specialists into their Commercial teams. These roles have always been crucial, but are likely to grow even more important once NHS Innovator Passports are rolled out. Having a solid team in place will help medical device companies get ahead when it comes to supporting rollouts across multiple NHS sites. Many are likely to take a 'boots on the ground' approach here to help get clinicians and other healthcare staff trained and comfortable with tech quickly!
What roles might change or require upskilling?
There are also some areas of a medical devices team that might not see a huge influx of new hiring, but may instead see subtle changes to their day-to-day operations.
The biggest area that is likely to see some change is Compliance and Regulatory teams. The passport concept reduces the number of approvals products need to go through, taking it from a trust-by-trust approach to one that's more centralised. So it makes sense that medical device companies might also boost their centralised approach. It'll likely take a bit of adapting - or a slightly different skillset - to manage a UK-wide approach versus many local submissions.
Another area is around Account Management. Not much is likely to change here, but it's worth medical device companies making sure that their account management teams are laser-focused on building strong, long-lasting, high-level relationships with NHS boards as well as the procurement and clinical teams. This'll help support successful product roll-out and buy-in. Like we said, this isn't a huge change, but reinforces the need for skills like great stakeholder management and negotiation, as well as the ability to think bigger-picture.