What to expect

The NCCHT will have world-class equipment and facilities including all the technologies necessary to develop cutting-edge solutions for healthcare, and to deliver excellent patient care.

There will be:

• specialist gait and movement labs
• a virtual reality suite
• a telecentre for remote care
• simulated hospital and home environments
• a business suite
• exhibition areas
• clinic spaces

The National Centre for Child Health Technology will be more than just a building.
Being part of the NCCHT will make you part of a global network of knowledge around healthcare, innovation and technology development.

The Centre will form part of the Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park, a rapidly growing campus of world-class institutions focused on improving public health and wellbeing as a tangible legacy of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

At Sheffield Children’s we also have a strong history of driving child health technology development. This has seen us create and develop networks for ground-breaking work that takes place all over the country. These networks will help provide the foundation and expertise to accelerate adoption of technologies developed at the NCCHT.

Being able to call the Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park ‘home’, with over a decade’s worth of collaboration and health technology development behind us, as we start this next chapter is incredibly exciting.

Being based in this unique location in the east of Sheffield means being part of a whole ecosystem of research and innovation organisations, cutting-edge diagnostics, and elite sports and rehab facilities including:

• The Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre
• The National Centre for Sports and Exercise Medicine
• The National Centre of Excellence for Food Engineering
• The Canon Medical Arena
• Two schools with 3,000 students on site
• The English Institute of Sport

Sheffield Children’s developed and hosts the National Technology Innovation Transforming Child Health (TITCH) Network and currently hosts the NIHR Children and Young People (CYP) MedTech Cooperative funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). This brings together seven NHS Trusts across the country to drive technology development in key areas of child health.

Next year Sheffield Children’s will launch and host the NIHR Children and Young People HealthTech Research Centre.

From an initial investment of £50,000 when the TITCH Network was launched in 2014, these networks have leveraged over £23 million for child health technology development. These technologies have transformed the care of children and young people.

The Children’s Hospital Alliance (CHA) is a national network of specialist NHS trusts working together to improve the quality, access and experience of hospital care for children and families. We are one of 12 members within this network.

The NCCHT will bring together patients and their families with professionals to co-create solutions that will help improve the lives of children and young people now and in the future.

This will involve opportunities for innovators to engage with every aspect of a child’s life and to test solutions with real patients so they can be as effective as possible. Health professionals will be able to share expertise, and patients and families experiences will be the main drivers of all we do.

The wheel of collaboration is a visual representation showing the way we will collaborate at the NCCHT – children and young people and their families are at the heart of all we do.

On an average day you can expect to find patients using the specialist gait labs, young people and families testing new health technologies in spaces that are designed to feel like home, and health professionals providing regular appointments and care in a new and exciting environment.

There will be engineers working on prototypes, researchers and designers discovering the next exciting health solutions, and spaces for all visitors to learn more about health technology.

We will be situated in a place that is dedicated to partnerships and progression, and we will build upon years of collaboration and connections to create child health technologies that help change lives.