Overview

While the UK remains a comparatively safe place to give birth, maternity care is challenged by growing health inequalities, with women from minority ethnic groups and those living in the most socially deprived areas more likely to experience adverse outcomes of pregnancy.

Women from ethnic minority groups are more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth and are also at increased risk of poor pregnancy outcomes including stillbirth, miscarriage, and pre-term birth.

Funded by NHS England through the Accelerated Access Collaborative, in partnership with the AHSN Network, SBRI Healthcare announced the opening of Competition 20 in May 2022 for innovations to address inequalities in Maternity Care.

Only those projects that have completed Phase 1 successfully will be eligible to apply for Phase 2.

Scope

This competition seeks to address 3 key challenges and aims to identify innovative solutions which can be adopted by the NHS, taking into account the systemic complexity and recognising some of the important influences on care delivery in these areas:

1. Perinatal Mental Health
2. Support to Women post-discharge
3. Risk identification, stratification, and intervention

Applicants are asked to consider the impact of their innovation on the whole system and to be aware of the competitive environment, even considering working together with other companies and organisations to bring forward solutions that can make a real difference. Health inequality is a core component of this competition, and equity of access and experience should therefore be a central pillar of any successful innovation.

Those submitting applications will need to provide information on the following key criteria:

• How will the proposed solution impact the care system and how will the system need to be changed (including people, processes and culture) in order to deliver system-wide benefits?

• How will you ensure that the innovation will be acceptable to patients (and their families and wider support network) and to health and social care workers? How could these groups be involved in the design of a solution and its development?

• How will you ensure that the innovation is affordable to the NHS and wider systems such as Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) both immediately and throughout the life of the product? What evidence, both health economics and delivery of true impact will the NHS and wider system require before the technology can be adopted?

• How will you ensure that the innovation enhances equity of access (e.g. takes account of underserved ethnic or economic groups) and increases engagement with vulnerable groups?

• How will your innovation support the NHS commitment to reach net zero carbon? You will be asked to provide information on the steps you have taken to identify the carbon pathway and the consequences of the proposed solution on carbon emissions.