Competition stifles health innovation.
Here’s why collaboration works better

The pace of innovation in health and care has never been faster. But too much progress still stalls between pilot and scale.  

Organisations are often trying to deliver change in isolation – to tackle challenges that no single player can solve alone. Adoption pathways are fragmented; up to 80% of NHS digital health pilots fail to scale as a result. 46% of NHS leaders cite lack of cross-sector collaboration as the single biggest barrier to getting innovation to patients. 

When collaboration works, patients experience joined-up journeys, faster diagnoses and care designed around their needs. When it fails, innovation stalls and people wait longer for solutions that already exist. 

The reality is that transformation in health and care depends on a system that moves as one. As demand grows and resources are stretched further, collaboration is no longer optional; it’s the only route to sustainable transformation and better care.  

Innovation can, according to NHS England, only succeed when organisations act as part of a wider ecosystem – solving problems together rather than acting in isolation. Data, capital, workforce, regulation, and patient engagement must work in harmony to deliver real impact.  

Why collaboration beats competition 

Competition has its place, driving creativity and technological progress. But in complex systems like the NHS, competition without coordination fragments effort and slows adoption. Innovation needs collaboration to scale. 

The challenges facing our health system – from a rapidly ageing population to soaring incidences of long-term conditions including heart disease and Type 2 diabetes – cannot be addressed through competition.  

Innovation only delivers impact when it is adopted, and adoption requires alignment between commissioners, clinicians, technologists, investors, and patients. In other words, systems – not organisations – create outcomes. Collaborative models reduce risk, accelerate learning, and make innovation more investable. They allow us to move faster, test smarter, and scale what works. 

Principles of Collaborative Innovation 

Sustained innovation in health and care relies on five guiding principles: 

• Co-design from the frontline.

  The most effective solutions are developed with practitioners and service users from the outset. As the Healthy Foundation puts it, co-design plays a dual role: ensuring technology meets the needs of stakeholders (including tech partners, improvement teams and patient organisations), while also building the support and ownership among end users (including patients, service users and staff) critical for technology adoption. 

• Shared governance and data infrastructure.

  Trust and interoperability are the cornerstones of system-wide adoption. One of the many reasons the NHS Medium Term Planning Framework (published October 2025) mandates interoperability is the huge improvement in efficiency: interoperable systems means fewer unnecessary or duplicated tests and faster diagnoses. Another is patient-centricity: when data is accessible, sharable and understandable across all clinical settings, patients are empowered to make more informed decisions about their own health and care. They can access the right treatment for them, more quickly. For the health system, the result is a fully integrated care model in which every stakeholder has the information they need for better outcomes.  

• Aligned incentives.

  Blended funding and co-investment models ensure that all partners benefit from success. Analysis by BCG found that in the UK, “incentives [for innovation] at all levels, from the individual to the organisation, are often ineffective, discouraging innovators or making them look elsewhere for opportunities.” By rewarding systemic outcomes over activity, we can create more enabling environments for adoption at scale. In practice, that could mean tying reimbursement and investment to metrics such as reduced waiting times, earlier diagnoses, better patient-reported outcomes and lower total cost of care. 

• Real-world test beds.

  Innovation must be proven in the environments where care is actually delivered. Regulatory sandboxes such as Singapore’s provide controlled environments “for developing evidence about how a new product, technology, or business model (innovation) works and the outcomes it produces” (Jeník and Duff 2020) – giving proven innovations the foundations for adoption at scale.The UK already has a regulatory sandbox for new innovations; the MHRA launched AI Airlock, a sandbox for AI-based medical devices, in 2024. Seven emerging technologies were selected for the second phase of the AI Airlock programme in October 2025 — from providing eye test results in minutes to much faster cancer detection.  

• Neutral convenors.

  Organisations like Future Care Capital (FCC) play a critical role as system integrators – creating space for collaboration between sectors that rarely meet. FCC’s work across the UK health and care landscape illustrates how collaborative leadership creates national impact: 

  – Digital Care Adoption Readiness Frameworks help integrated care systems (ICSs), local authorities and SMEs assess digital maturity and co-design adoption pathways.
  – Digital Inclusion and Remote Care Collaborations bring NHS, local government and VCSE partners together to align digital transformation with population needs and equitable access.
  – Data as a Shared Public Asset convenes national stakeholders to unlock interoperability and responsible data use for prevention, AI and population health.
  – National Thought Leadership and Convening connects NHS England, DHSC, academia, industry and patient groups to shape governance, policy and adoption at scale. 

 

Collaboration is the new operating system for change  

The future of health innovation will be defined by our ability to collaborate across charities, industry, academia and the NHS (NHS Confederation) With a three-fold increase in long-term health conditions predicted over the next 15 years, the case for radical collaboration has never been clearer. 

The future of health innovation won’t be defined by who owns the best idea, but by who can bring people together to make it work. FCC can help. If you’re looking to scale innovation sustainably but not sure where to start, contact Dr Lauren Evans at lauren@futurecarecapital.org.uk.