NHS red tape sends virtual reality firm that trains doctors to US

Oxford Medical Simulation, a virtual reality training firm, has said the NHS’s labyrinthine structure and procurement policies act as a barrier to innovation, leading it to focus on the American market.

Jack Pottle, co-founder and chief medical officer at the London-based company, said that until 2020, the NHS had actually been ahead of the US in its adoption of virtual reality to train doctors and nurses, but that had since reversed.

“Being able to get any innovation through on a practical level, and I mean from a procurement level in the NHS, is one of the biggest blockers,” he said.

His co-founder, Michael Wallace, said part of the issue was the need for companies to sell into each individual NHS trust. “You’re challenged with highly regional agendas, often attached to individuals… You do have to go trust to trust. There are 229 trusts [in England], which did make going to the US more appealing,” he said. “It’s frustrating on a personal level, because obviously we’re both British, and the NHS could be benefiting from this. It’s within their grasp.”

Their comments come as Peter Kyle, the science secretary, vowed to take a scalpel to bureaucracy holding back companies from bringing innovative services to market as part of the government’s plan for economic growth.

Speaking at a conference in London on Monday, Kyle used opposition to the use of drones delivering blood samples for St Thomas’s Hospital, London, to highlight some of the hurdles that innovators in the NHS have to jump: “Too often, though, pioneering projects like these can’t get off the ground in Britain. Or they flounder in the face of bureaucratic headwinds,” he said.

Oxford Medical Simulation says virtual reality fills the gap between the theoretical and practical in medicine

Oxford Medical Simulation offers virtual reality simulations of patient interactions used to train doctors and nurses. It was founded in 2017 and, in 2019, won a contract with Health Education England East of England to train junior doctors on their software.

In 2020 the company signed its first US contract with Boston Children’s Hospital, to help train nurses and now has contracts with three of the top ten largest healthcare systems in the US, meaning that the majority of its contracts are now in the US.

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Oxford Medical Simulation had previously received support from two NHS innovation schemes, the Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, and took part in the NHS innovation accelerator.

Pottle said: “There is an awareness in the NHS of the need for innovation and the support for it at the government level.”

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He set up the company after working as an NHS physician for seven years. He said he saw a clinical need to fill the gap between the theoretical and practical applications of medicine.

Wallace and Pottle collaborated at first on a free platform called Oxford Medical Education in 2013, which includes videos and 360 video resources. While well received, the pair shifted into the use of virtual reality devices to give learners more agency.

In January last year, the company secured almost £10 million in early stage funding from the venture capital firm Frog Capital and ACF Investors.