Healthcare spending in the UK accounts for a colossal 10% of all economic output. And this figure has steadily grown yearly for the last several decades.
Despite this, many leaders struggle to secure long-term investment and government loan money for their initiatives. A lack of investment readiness—which refers to a project being prepared for funding—is often to blame.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to implement an iron-clad investment-readiness strategy, ensuring you identify and access the best possible opportunities.
Understanding the healthcare investment landscape
The funding landscape in the UK, while dominated by the NHS, is multifaceted. In all cases, it is imperative that you seek out investors whose goals align with those of your project.
Investment opportunities usually fall into one of six categories.
- NHS funding: Primarily targets ongoing clinical care and infrastructure development.
- Local authority funding: Focuses on community-level services and public health initiatives (often preventative).
- Charitable and government grants: Supports targeted research programmes and initiatives aligned with charity goals.
- Innovation funds: Dedicated to developing and scaling innovative healthcare technologies and service models.
- Partnerships and pooling: Combines resources from multiple organisations to finance health projects, often with broad community impacts.
- Private investment: Seeks scalable solutions with a focus on financial returns and innovation.
Crafting your investment strategy
While your investment approach will be unique to your organisation's particular strengths and ambitions, successful strategies share common features.
- Clear and compelling value proposition: Articulate all benefits related to patient care, with a spotlight placed on your unique differentiators.
- Investor alignment: Pursue only those investors whose values and goals align with yours.
- Adoption of innovative technology: Emphasise how you will implement underused technology to enhance the quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery.
- Evidence-based outcomes (quantitative and qualitative): Provide solid, data-driven evidence, highlighting both operational efficiency and human outcomes.
- Strong potential for scalability: Demonstrate your solution's ability to grow and adapt across different patient demographics, physical environments and organisational infrastructures.
- Integration with existing healthcare systems: Ensure interoperability with existing healthcare systems, explaining migration processes if necessary.
Navigating government and NHS funding and support
The NHS is the largest source of healthcare funds in the UK. Understanding how to navigate sometimes complex application processes is a must for investment readiness.
- Ensure a broad understanding of opportunities: Comprehensive knowledge of the funding landscape is a precursor to targeting specific opportunities. Stay up-to-date with the activities of organisations like Innovate UK, the Health Innovation Challenge Fund, the NHS Innovation Accelerator and so on.
- Be selective in your applications: Application processes can be long and involved, pointing toward the need for a selective approach. Ensure that you meet eligibility criteria and that your goals and outcomes align with those of the funding organisation.
- Enter into dialogue with NHS and government leaders: While NHS and government application processes tend to follow formal routes, with an emphasis on regulatory compliance, there is ample opportunity for networking and conversations with leaders and decision-makers.
Preparing for success: Key considerations for attracting investors
At Waymark, we suggest a three-point checklist for quickly ascertaining investment readiness:
- Comprehensive business plan: Your plan should include financial projections, contingencies to manage risk and a clear outline of how you intend to drive patient outcomes.
- Strong existing partnerships to strengthen your proposition: Demonstrating partnerships with established healthcare and tech providers builds credibility. Initiatives with a high degree of integration in the existing healthcare and NHS ecosystem often hold potential for greater impact. Research published in the Harvard Business Review demonstrates that investors value trust in potential partners above most other qualities.
- Compelling narratives and evidence-based outcomes: Will your pitch connect emotionally and logically with potential investors? Are you able to highlight patient success stories alongside more quantitative results? Numerous studies have shown that stories are far more memorable than data alone.
Conclusion
The benefits of a successful investment-readiness strategy are difficult to overstate. It provides the basis for innovation, growth and improved patient outcomes across a wide range of measures.
It is imperative that healthcare leaders devote resources to creating and refining their approaches. This involves understanding all investment opportunities, building strategic relationships, crafting a compelling, evidence-based pitch and selectively pursuing the most promising opportunities.
If you adopt this method, you are cementing a financial foundation that will serve your organisation in both the immediate and long term.
Ensure investment readiness with Waymark
Ready to achieve full investment readiness in your healthcare organisation?
Book a free Xploration to learn how Waymark can help you implement a long-term plan for identifying and securing funding opportunities.
