Early-stage health innovations often reach a point where the next design decision carries significant cost, risk and potential long-term impact. For innovations designed for children, young people and families, these decisions must be informed by real-world clinical practice.
Here at Alder Hey innovation, we work towards and support responsible, system-led innovation by connecting companies and entrepreneurs with the right expertise at the right time. This helps to shape ideas early, reduce risk and build solutions that can succeed in a children’s healthcare setting.
The Challenge
Developing products for pre-continent children, sits in a highly sensitive clinical space. Considerations relating to dignity, safeguarding, parental stress and clinical priorities must be carefully considered, especially in urgent or unplanned care settings.
At the very early stages of development, Tinkle Guard needed to understand whether their continence concept would realistically fit within a paediatric emergency care setting. The questions they needed answering where practical and context-specific:
- How do continence-related needs present in urgent care?
- How do conversations with parents take place under time pressure?
- Would a continence product be required or prioritised in an emergency clinical setting?
Like many early-stage innovators, access to frontline paediatric clinicians is a significant challenge. Without timely clinical input, there becomes a risk of delaying development or relaying on assumptions rather than lived clinical experiences. Neither approach supports responsible innovation for children and families.
The Approach
Our Alder Hey innovation team provided a rapid, proportionate approach to enable early clinical insight at the point it was most needed.
Working with Tinkle Guard, the Alder Hey Innovation team first clarified the specific clinical context required, identifying paediatric A&E as the most relevant setting to explore questions of use, acceptability and prioritisation. The team then managed the end-to-end process, including identifying an appropriate clinician, arranging access and setting up a structured and facilitated virtual conversation.
This resulted in a one-to-one discussion with a senior paediatric A&E clinician, who routinely works with children and families in urgent and emergency care settings. The conversation created a space for honest discussions regarding frontline practice, including clinical workflow, communication with parents, safeguarding considerations and the practical realities of emergency care.
By prioritising speed and relevance, our Innovation team facilitated focussed clinical engagement without the delay or cost associated with a formal research study.
The Benefit
The session delivered clear, actionable insight at a critical development stage, enabling informed decisions to be made before further investment in design and build.
From an innovation perspective, the primary benefit was direction rather than volume. The discussion helped clarify where concept aligned with real-world clinical practice, where adaptations might be required and where the product might not naturally fit within an urgent care setting. This early understanding reduced the risk of Tinkle Guard progressing with a product that might struggle to gain trust or relevance in practice.
The approach taken by the team at Alder Hey Innovation, also demonstrated the value of early clinical engagement. Access to frontline NHS expertise provided Tinkle Guard with real-world children’s healthcare knowledge, rather than progressing with a product based on assumptions or secondary interpretation.
For Alder Hey Innovation, this project highlights how targeted clinical access can support safer and more effective paediatric innovation. By connecting innovators with the right expertise, at the right time, Alder Hey innovation helps ensure that future innovative children’s health solutions succeed.
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