The East Midlands plans to turn itself into the UK's "RehabTech Valley"—a concentrated hub for companies and researchers developing technologies that help people recover from injury, illness, or age-related decline. This matters because 2.4 billion people worldwide could benefit from rehabilitation technologies, yet in the East Midlands, one in five people lives in an income-deprived area—worse than the national average—and these communities are 60% more likely to suffer long-term health conditions while facing the biggest barriers to accessing rehab services. The region already has world-class facilities worth £461 million and 459 medical technology SMEs, but these businesses remain largely disconnected from research infrastructure, slowing innovation and limiting access to skills, clinical partnerships, and investment. If EMERGE succeeds, it will connect those SMEs with the National Rehabilitation Centre and other facilities, accelerating the development of new devices and therapies. The result could be faster recovery and return to work for patients, reduced pressure on the NHS through prevention strategies, and a thriving regional economy built around a growing global market.
View original technical description
1.1 Context Rehabilitation is essential to universal healthcare (UN SDG3). Rehabilitation Technologies (RehabTech) give people the tools to accelerate recovery, reduce disability, and regain independence following serious injury, illness, or declining function with age. RehabTech also prevents, reduces, or manages complications linked to many health conditions. Globally, 2.4bn people live with health conditions that may benefit from access to RehabTech (World Health Organisation, R9). As people live longer and chronic health conditions increase, RehabTech demand is soaring. The East Midlands (EM) is at the forefront of rehabilitation and associated technologies, recognised by the Government's £105M investment in the National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC). 1.2 Key Challenges Economic decline is causing widening health inequalities in the EM (EM Health Profile, R8). 1/5 people live in income deprived areas compared to 1/6 nationally, and preventable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, and COPD are worse in EM cities than UK average. Deprived communities are 60% more likely to suffer long-term health conditions than the richest, yet face significant barriers to accessing rehabilitation services that would quicken recovery and return to work. EM has built a thriving ecosystem containing world-class facilities, networks, and centres (£461M) required to achieve regional ambitions of becoming the place for cutting-edge RehabTech; however, businesses remain largely disconnected from R&I infrastructure. Fragmentation is slowing productivity and compounding issues such as access to requisite skills, clinical partnerships, and private investment for SMEs (Hatch Regeneris, R3). 1.3 Aims and Objectives Catalysing the region's success, EMERGE will launch EM as the UK's 'RehabTech Valley'—a leading hub for RehabTech excellence, analogous to the impact of the UK's Formula 1 Motorsport Valley. EMERGE will build mechanisms currently missing to connect EM's cluster of 459 MedTech SMEs with our world-class incubator, ensuring they dominate the design, development, and delivery of pioneering RehabTech to transform health outcomes and inequalities. We will achieve this via three workstreams designed to utilise existing infrastructure to maximise capacity and capability for impact generation: Connectivity Workstream O1: create mechanisms for engagement between businesses, academics, NHS, and patients through our state-of-the-art facilities. O2: capture and harness the breadth of UK R&I talent, through the Collaboration Fund. Impact Accelerator Workstream O3: support transformative collaborative impact projects to accelerate the development and delivery of pioneering RehabTech, through an Impact Accelerator Fund. O4: ensure a thriving and sustainable RehabTech future, through a Next Generation Scheme. Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Workstream O5: embed PPIE in EMERGE activities, projects, and governance to address health inequalities. O6: develop confidence and skills in public and patient use of RehabTech through training. 1.4 Co-Creation and Partnerships EMERGE is led by Nottingham Trent University (NTU), includes 30 consortium members (see section 4, Table 1), and has been co-created with partners and stakeholders across five events (198 delegates) and 26 consultations. 1.5 Potential Impacts EMERGE will deliver significant regional economic impact by positioning EM as the hub for cutting-edge RehabTech. This will boost regional growth and productivity, enabling SMEs to secure an increasing share of a rapidly growing market. EMERGE will accelerate delivery of innovations into health and care pathways to transform how people recover and regain fitness and function following injury or illness. EMERGE will progress NHS prevention strategies (NHS Long Term Plan, R6), by placing RehabTech in at-risk populations to enable them to live well at home.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know