Clinical Entrepreneurs: Rewiring Health From Within for Equitable Care | Tamsin Holland Brown

In this episode of Health in Hyperdrive, Dominic James is joined by Dr Tamsin Holland Brown, a paediatrician in Cambridge and Clinical Co-Lead of the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme, to explore how the people at the centre of healthcare spot problems, build solutions and change the system at scale. Tamsin's own story shows how. She noticed that many children referred to her for developmental problems were really struggling to hear. The path to treatment was long, and hearing aids cost thousands. So she built her own. She started with parts from an electronics shop and a soldering iron on her kitchen table, found a tech partner in Raspberry Pi, and took a headset 50 times cheaper than the alternatives to children from the UK to Malawi.

That was just the start. Tamsin now helps clinicians across the NHS do the same, and the impact is huge. The programme has backed about 1,800 clinical entrepreneurs, who have raised about £1.2 billion. About 448 of them say they stayed in the NHS because they could innovate, when they would otherwise have left. It has grown from a pilot for doctors to every NHS discipline, opened up to patient innovators, partnered with the Alzheimer's Society, and inspired Australia to build its own version.

It points to a future where health systems are rebuilt from the inside, by the people who know the problems best, and made ready for an era of digital health, AI and genetics. Tamsin sees a real chance for equitable care that works for everyone, with innovation built into every clinician's job. As she puts it, "there is a chance for us to get it right."

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