Accelerator programme to help innovators enter NHS primary care

Digital health innovators are being offered a specialist accelerator programme designed to help them engage with NHS primary care.

Primary Care Ready, launched by Health Innovation West of England and One Care, is a five-day programme for companies with solutions ready to scale that want to better understand NHS procurement and prepare their products for wider adoption across the UK.

The programme is a response to the biggest barriers facing UK health technology businesses, including navigating the complexity of NHS primary care commissioning, understanding customer needs, demonstrating value to decision-makers, and achieving scale in a healthcare system under pressure.

Alex Leach, deputy director of programmes at Health Innovation West of England, said: “Many innovative companies develop excellent technologies but find that entering the NHS primary care market is far more complex than expected.

“Success requires much more than a strong product. It depends on understanding how primary care works, who makes purchasing decisions, how value is assessed, and how to demonstrate a compelling case for adoption.

“Primary Care Ready has been designed to address those challenges. By combining expert commercialisation support with direct access to primary care leaders and operational expertise, we’re helping innovators deliver innovations that better suit the needs of the primary care market and become investment-ready, procurement-ready and ultimately adoption-ready.”

Using insight from One Care, one of the UK’s largest GP federations, participants will receive practical guidance from NHS leaders, clinicians and innovation specialists covering market access, procurement pathways, customer engagement, implementation and scaling opportunities within primary care.

The programme also aligns with the NHS’s growing focus on neighbourhood health, prevention, digital transformation and the shifting care from hospitals into community settings.

Morgan Daly, deputy digital director of transformation and strategy at One Care, said: “One Care supports practices and primary care networks to identify and implement the digital tools and innovations best suited to their organisation.

“Our partnership approach has given One Care an in-depth understanding of the realities and complexities of implementing new technologies in primary care settings.

“Through the Primary Care Ready programme, we’ll help innovators understand procurement, operational workflows, clinical priorities and what successful adoption looks like in practice. By sharing those insights, we can help companies develop solutions that are better aligned to the needs of the NHS and more likely to achieve sustainable scale.”

Applications are now open for the programme, which takes place in Bristol across five in-person sessions between 12–15 October and 5 November 2026.