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NHS pilot site prize up for grabs for Pitchfest 2020 winners

The 2020 Pitchfest winners will have their innovation tested and scaled in a real-world NHS setting thanks to a partnership with Chelsea and Westminster.

The winners of the 2020 Digital Health Rewired Pitchfest will be offered the opportunity to have their innovation tested and scaled in a real-world NHS setting.

Digital Health is partnering up with Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and their charity, CW+, for the 2020 competition which provides an opportunity for early stage digital health start-ups to pitch their idea or venture in front of a hugely influential crowd of senior NHS IT leaders and big digital health investors.

The start-up, which is crowned the winner on 4 March 2020, will be given the unique opportunity to have their innovation tested and scaled at the world-class Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust through its CW Innovation programme. Launched in September 2019, the programme aims to deliver a portfolio of innovative initiatives and solutions to improve patient care and address some of the real-time challenges that healthcare organisations face today.

Chris Chaney, chief executive of the hospital charity CW+ and co-lead of CW Innovation, said he was delighted to provide a real-world test bed for the Pitchfest 2020 winner.

“There has never been a greater demand to innovate and drive high-impact improvements to patient care. We are excited to be a part of the introduction and wider dissemination of new and entrepreneurial solutions identified via Pitchfest,” he added.

The CW Innovation programme is emerging as a leader in co-designing, embedding and, critically, sustaining new innovations that can make a real difference to patients.

Rob Hodgkiss, deputy chief executive and chief operating officer at Chelsea and Westminster, said: “Working with Pitchfest is a great fit – we both strive to identify high impact innovations that have the potential to transform patient care and make our hospitals ‘smarter’.

“This is a unique partnership that we’re proud to be a part of, and we can’t wait to meet to the finalists.”

Run as part of the Digital Health Rewired Conference and Exhibition, the Pitchfest is an ideal way to build NHS relationships, gain exposure and develop innovative concepts or start-ups.

Chris Chaney joins a cohort of high-profile judges for 2020, including:

Tony Young, National Clinical Lead for Innovation, NHS England
James Wise, Partner, Balderton Capital (VC)
Ayesha Rahim, CCIO and Deputy Medical Director, Lancashire Care NHS FT
Kate Newhouse, CEO, Blenheim Chalcot (VC)
Chris Sawyer, Innovation Lead, Digital Health at Innovate UK
Yinka Makinde, Programe Director, DigitalHealth.London

On the morning of the Pitchfest groups of start-ups will each deliver a three-minute pitch and then answer questions from the judges live on stage. A winner from each group will be chosen to go through to the final, where finalists will pitch again, and the judges will then name an overall Pitchfest winner.

Last year’s Rewired Pitchfest winners, TestCard, developed a device that embeds a urine diagnostic device into a postcard.