Pym's Consultancy

Call Website

Pym's Consultancy Pym's Consultancy works with innovators and their companies to prove the commercial viability of their products

"Who needs to believe in this for it to happen?"It's a question I sometimes ask when I'm talking to an innovator about b...
21/10/2026

"Who needs to believe in this for it to happen?"

It's a question I sometimes ask when I'm talking to an innovator about bringing something into healthcare.

The first answer is often the customer.

But who is the customer?

The clinician who will use it?

The patient who will benefit from it?

The person holding the budget?

The manager responsible for the service?

Procurement?

Someone in IT?

Very quickly, we realise we're not talking about one person.

And they don't all need to believe the same thing.

A clinician might need confidence that it will improve care without making their working day harder.

A patient may need to understand why doing something differently is worth the effort.

A finance director may want to know when and where the financial benefit will appear.

An IT team will have entirely different questions.

One of the things I've learnt from working with healthcare innovators is that a strong value proposition isn't necessarily one beautifully crafted message that you repeat to everybody.

The underlying value should be consistent.

But the conversation needs to reflect the person you're having it with.

That's why I like to map stakeholders early.

Not simply to create a list of job titles, but to understand the people behind them.

What matters to them?

What pressures are they under?

What might make them cautious?

And what evidence will they need before they're comfortable saying yes?

You don't need everybody to be excited about your innovation for the same reason.

You do need to understand what will make it matter to each of them.

"Tell me what your product does – but don't tell me how it works."I've asked innovators versions of this question quite ...
16/10/2026

"Tell me what your product does – but don't tell me how it works."

I've asked innovators versions of this question quite a few times.

It's surprisingly difficult.

When you've spent years developing something, you know every detail of it.

You know the science.

The technology.

The features.

The acronyms.

You know why one component works differently from the alternatives and why a particular piece of functionality took six months to get right.

And all of that knowledge matters.

But your customer may not need all of it. At least, not yet.

Sometimes I'll listen to an explanation and then ask:

"So what changes for the patient or the service if they use it?"

That's when we often get to the really interesting bit.

Perhaps a clinician gets 20 minutes back in their day.

Perhaps a patient can do something independently that previously required help.

Perhaps somebody can be treated closer to home.

Perhaps the service can see more patients without needing more staff.

Suddenly we're no longer talking about what the product does.

We're talking about what it makes possible.

The technical detail hasn't become any less important. There will be people who need to understand it, and there will be points in the buying process when it matters enormously.

But it doesn't always need to be the beginning of the story.

One of the useful things about having somebody outside your development team ask questions is that they don't know which bits they're "supposed" to be impressed by.

They just keep asking:

"So what difference does that make?"

And sometimes that's exactly the question you need.

"That's how the process is supposed to work."It's a phrase I've heard during healthcare projects more than once.And it's...
14/10/2026

"That's how the process is supposed to work."

It's a phrase I've heard during healthcare projects more than once.

And it's often followed, sooner or later, by:

"But that's not quite what happens in practice."

That second sentence is usually where things get interesting.

You can have a beautifully documented pathway showing exactly what should happen, who does what and in which order.

Then you talk to the people actually delivering the service.

You discover that someone keeps a separate spreadsheet because the main system doesn't give them what they need.

A clinician makes an extra phone call because experience has taught them that otherwise something gets missed.

A member of the admin team has quietly created a workaround that holds part of the process together.

Or patients have found their own way of navigating something that wasn't designed with their circumstances in mind.

None of that necessarily appears on the official pathway.

But if you're trying to introduce an innovation into that service, it matters enormously.

I've learnt not to assume that understanding how a service is designed means I understand how it works.

I want to talk to the people doing the job.

I want to know where they lose time, what frustrates them, what they've adapted and which apparently small tasks are actually keeping everything moving.

Because sometimes the process you're hoping to improve isn't really the process on the diagram at all.

It's the one people have created around it to make it work.

How often do we think of regulation as a barrier rather than an opportunity?For many innovators, regulatory requirements...
13/10/2026

How often do we think of regulation as a barrier rather than an opportunity?

For many innovators, regulatory requirements are seen as something to tackle once the product is ready.

In reality, they can help shape better products, reduce risk and provide a clearer route to market.

In the latest episode of MedTech for Beginners, Kate is joined by Bryan Lister, Health Technology & Regulatory Consultant at InViva Healthcare Management.

Together, they discuss:

• Why regulation should be considered from the very beginning of product development.

• How understanding regulatory requirements early can save both time and money later.

• Why good regulatory planning supports commercial success rather than slowing it down.

One of the strongest messages from the conversation is that regulation isn't there simply to create paperwork. At its best, it's about ensuring products are safe, effective and ready for successful adoption.

If you'd like to find out more about Bryan's work and InViva Healthcare Management, visit:
https://www.inviva.co.uk/

🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube.

🎧 Or listen wherever you usually find your podcasts.

Whether you're an innovator, entrepreneur, clinician, investor or simply interested in healthcare innovation, we hope you enjoy the conversation.


______________________________________

12/10/2026

🎥 Coming tomorrow on MedTech for Beginners...

Does the word "regulation" fill you with dread?

For many innovators, regulation can feel like a hurdle standing between a great idea and the market.

But what if it could actually become one of your greatest assets?

In this episode, Kate is joined by Bryan Lister, Health Technology & Regulatory Consultant at InViva Healthcare Management, to explore why engaging with regulation early can help shape stronger products and smoother routes to market.

Watch the short clip below for a glimpse of the conversation.

🎥 The full episode will be available on YouTube tomorrow.

🎧 It will also be available wherever you usually find your podcasts.

Whether you're an innovator, entrepreneur, clinician, investor or simply interested in healthcare innovation, we hope you enjoy the conversation.

How many times can you hear "Could it also…?" before your innovation starts becoming something else entirely?It's a conv...
09/10/2026

How many times can you hear "Could it also…?" before your innovation starts becoming something else entirely?

It's a conversation I've had with innovators more than once.

They show their product to somebody and get useful feedback.

"Could it also do this?"

So they add it.

Then someone else asks:

"Could you make it do that?"

Another feature goes onto the list.

A clinician has an idea. A potential customer suggests something. An investor sees another opportunity.

Individually, they may all be perfectly sensible suggestions.

But eventually I find myself asking:

"Which problem are we actually trying to solve?"

Listening to people is enormously important. I've written before about why innovators need to involve patients, clinicians and the public rather than developing products in isolation.

But listening doesn't mean implementing every suggestion.

Part of the skill is understanding why somebody has asked for something.

Is there a genuine unmet need behind the request?

Would it make the product more useful to the people it was designed for?

Does it remove a barrier to adoption?

Or are we gradually adding complexity, cost and development time without materially improving the original solution?

Sometimes the most useful outcome from a conversation isn't another feature for the development list.

It's greater clarity about what your product needs to do – and what it doesn't.

Good innovation requires listening.

It also sometimes requires knowing when to say, "That's a good idea, but it's not what we're here to solve."

What does it mean when someone in the NHS says they're interested in your innovation?I've had versions of this conversat...
07/10/2026

What does it mean when someone in the NHS says they're interested in your innovation?

I've had versions of this conversation with innovators many times.

"We've spoken to the NHS. They're really interested."

That's good news.

But my next question is usually:

"Who is interested – and what happens next?"

Because interest and adoption are two very different things.

A clinician can genuinely love what you've developed and see immediately how it could help their patients.

But they may not hold the budget.

They may not be able to change the pathway.

They may need approval from procurement, IT, information governance or senior management.

Someone else may need to build the business case.

And another team entirely may ultimately make the decision.

None of that makes the clinician's enthusiasm any less valuable. In fact, having someone within the NHS who understands and believes in your innovation can be enormously helpful.

But "They're interested" isn't the end of the conversation.

It's the beginning of another one.

When I work with innovators, I want to understand where that interest sits within the organisation, who else needs to become involved and what needs to happen for enthusiasm to turn into action.

Sometimes the most useful question isn't:

"Do they like our product?"

It's:

"What would have to happen here for them actually to use it?"

That's when you begin to understand the route to adoption.

What are you actually selling?I've had conversations with healthcare innovators where I've asked them to describe their ...
01/10/2026

What are you actually selling?

I've had conversations with healthcare innovators where I've asked them to describe their product.

And they've done it brilliantly.

They know exactly how it works. They can explain the technology, the features, the clinical rationale and what makes it different.

Then I'll ask a slightly different question:

"What is the NHS buying?"

That's often a much harder one to answer.

Because the answer may not be your product.

A clinical team might be buying time.

A service manager might be buying additional capacity.

A commissioner might be buying fewer admissions or a more sustainable
pathway.

A patient might be buying greater independence, reassurance or the ability
to manage something at home that previously meant travelling to a clinic.

They're all looking at exactly the same innovation, but they're seeing its
value through very different eyes.

It's one of the reasons I spend so much time asking questions when I work with innovators.

Understanding the product matters enormously. But we also need to understand the world into which we're asking people to introduce it.

Sometimes changing the question from "What are we selling?" to "What are they buying?" changes the whole conversation.

When does a digital solution genuinely make a healthcare service better?Not simply when it replaces a paper form or move...
30/09/2026

When does a digital solution genuinely make a healthcare service better?

Not simply when it replaces a paper form or moves an existing process online.

I've worked on bespoke projects with NHS services where digital technology has been part of a much bigger piece of work: looking at how a service operates, where staff time is being spent and how care could be delivered differently.

Sometimes the opportunity is to reduce the administrative burden on clinical teams.

Sometimes it's about making better use of the staff and skills already available.

It might mean giving clinicians more time for meaningful patient contact, rather than asking them to spend it on processes that could be handled differently.

And sometimes digital tools can help patients become more actively involved in their own treatment – giving them better access to information, helping them record or monitor what is happening between appointments, and making communication with their healthcare team easier.

But the technology isn't the service.

It enables the service.

That's an important distinction.

A new platform won't automatically solve an inefficient process. Digitising a poor pathway can simply give you a digital version of the same problem.

The starting point has to be understanding the service: the people delivering it, the patients using it, the pressures on both and what you're actually trying to improve.

Then you can ask where digital technology might genuinely help.

The best digital enablement projects I've worked on haven't started with, "What can this technology do?"

They've started with, "How could this service work better?"

The technology comes next.

Wow!What a day Tuesday was! Starting at 6.15 I had an amazing day meeting the BDM and property team at Mencap.All I can ...
25/09/2026

Wow!

What a day Tuesday was! Starting at 6.15 I had an amazing day meeting the BDM and property team at Mencap.

All I can say is that everyone I have met in Mencap shares a mission to support as many people as possible who have learning disabilities to live their best lives. The services they provide and the dedication to quality care is an inspiration.

If you are looking for care, support or accommodation for an adult with a learning disability contact their team.

Finished with a free upgrade to a suite at my hotel, so winning at life even if it was a late one on the laptop!

Address

2 Beech Close
Heckington
NG349FT

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+447775287642

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Pym's Consultancy posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category