What does a health innovation pathway
look like – and where do you fit?

Navigating the NHS innovation environment can feel like being in a maze with no map. But in practice, most innovations follow a familiar path from initial idea to system-wide use. Knowing these stages – and where you sit on them – helps you focus your effort, avoid dead ends, and reach the right people at the right time.

Stage 1: Define the problem and build early evidence

Every successful innovation starts with a clear problem worth solving. Before anything else, you need to show what the problem costs the system and how your innovation helps. Early evidence can be modest, but it’s got to be honest and specific.

Stage 2: Meet the regulatory and assurance standards

Next come the standards that let the NHS take you seriously. Devices need the correct UKCA marking and MHRA compliance. Digital tools need to meet the Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC), which covers clinical safety, data protection, security, interoperability and usability. Clearing these early prevents painful delays later.

Stage 3: Test in the real world

An innovation has to prove itself in a real NHS setting, with real staff and patients. This usually means a pilot, often supported by a Health Innovation Network (formerly an AHSN) or a willing trust. The goal is to show that it works and to learn how it fits an actual pathway.

Stage 4: Evidence the value

A pilot that goes well still has to make its case. Here you build the evidence of outcomes and value that commissioners need, guided by the NICE Evidence Standards Framework. A clear economic case – what the innovation saves, and for whom – matters as much as the clinical result.

Stage 5: Win the commissioning decision

This is where adoption is won or lost. A commissioner or ICB weighs your evidence against competing priorities and a tight budget, and decides whether to fund you. A strong, well-translated case gives them the confidence to say yes.

Stage 6: Adopt and spread

Getting funded by one organisation is the start, not the finish. Spreading across the wider system is a stage in its own right, supported nationally by the Accelerated Access Collaborative and the Health Innovation Networks. The government is trying to ease this leap too: the 2025 Life Sciences Sector Plan introduced an NHS “innovator passport” to roll out proven tools across the system faster. Even so, many innovations that work brilliantly in one site never make the leap.

So where do you fit?

You’re probably further back than you think. If so, the temptation is often to prioritise selling, but the real work is building the evidence and assurance that make procurement possible. Locating yourself honestly on this path is the first step to moving along it.

How Future Care Capital helps

Future Care Capital is an independent partner working at the intersection of health innovation, evaluation, and impact investment. We help innovators see the whole pathway clearly, work out exactly where they are, and plan the steps that move them from promising pilot to system-wide adoption.

Because we’re independent and impartial, our guidance is shaped by what the system needs to see, rather than by anything we’ve got to sell. If you want help finding your place on the pathway and planning the road ahead, contact Dr Lauren Evans at lauren@futurecarecapital.org.uk.