A number of new Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competitions have been launched by the Technology Strategy Board.

SBRI is a mechanism that brings innovative solutions to specific public sector needs, by engaging with business in competitions for ideas that result in short term contracts.

The East of England Strategic Health Authority is launching three new SBRI competitions in April. The topic areas for ideas and new technologies include:

Managing long term conditions:
Increasingly, more people are living with long term conditions and quite apart from the personal issues this creates, it poses a significant challenge to the local health service. The Health Authority is looking for ideas and technologies that can be shown to make a difference in managing long term conditions. Specific areas that address the remote monitoring of patients combined with decision support to enable better care from home and innovative solutions to data and systems management with relation to patient care.

Patient safety and improving health outcomes:
This competition is focused on the area of patient safety and areas where patient care can be improved, and errors eradicated. Specifically, the Health Authority is looking for technologies that enable better patient monitoring, accurate transfer and interpretation of data to determine the correct treatment, designing best practice and eliminating calculation errors in medication.

The SBRI programme is being led by the Technology Strategy Board and more information on all of the competitions is on the Technology Strategy Board website. One of the aims of SBRI is to bring in companies and ideas outside of the normal scope through the KTNs.