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Start-Up Labs

TheHill’s Start-Up Labs programme is a short course for early-stage companies, supporting you to get your healthcare focused digital innovation off the ground. Our 2024 course encouraged Nurses, Midwives and Allied Health Professionals (NMAHPs) to share their ideas for digital solutions that could revolutionise the care they give to patients.

The programme enables NMAHPs and early stage companies to connect and work together to develop solutions which address a clinical need within the NHS. We believe that healthcare workers, with their specific knowledge and experience of existing challenges, can be critical contributors to innovation, and are well placed to address the substantial health inequalities faced within the UK.

The sessions are a combination of online and in-person workshops and cover a range of subjects including understanding healthcare, navigating the medial innovation ecosystem, developing your concept and value proposition, using the business model canvas, building an effective team and protecting your innovation.

Unlike other incubators, accelerators and venture creation initiatives, TheHill’s Start-Up Labs engages nurses, midwives and allied health professionals in mapping unmet needs and identifying key areas for innovation, with the aim of fostering the development of digital health solutions that put end-users at the heart of product and service design and improvement.

During the programme:

You will learn from successful innovators including those now supplying the NHS. You will benefit from the contributions of experts and mentors, many of whom are experienced entrepreneurs themselves. You’ll gain invaluable insights into the NHS and in particular the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

We will connect NMAHPs with early stage companies to form multidisciplinary teams and explore the transformation of project ideas which effectively address identified needs within healthcare into new products or services.

An important part of the Programme is to work alongside other innovators and professionals. We want to help you to lay the foundations on which to build your business, and help to cultivate the relationships you’ll need to take your idea to the next level.

This programme is perfect for entrepreneurs who: 

  • Have an idea or concept for a new product or service that would deliver benefits to patients and the healthcare system in the UK
  • Are interested in developing your knowledge of entrepreneurship and building a team / business for the idea
  • Have received feedback that we felt you were too early-stage for our NHS Market Access Accelerator (MAA) programme.

 This programme is ideal for Nurses, Midwives and Allied Health Professionals who: 

  • Want to revolutionise the way they work through digital innovation.
  • Want to learn more about becoming a clinical entrepreneur.
  • Want to gain new skills and an understanding of digital innovation in healthcare.
  • Have a need which could be solved with a digital solution.

Course fee:

Free of charge, but you will need to commit to key dates.

Programme dates:

The programme runs for 3 months each year.

Keep up-to-date

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