E147: Driving Innovation in Healthcare through the NHS Innovation Accelerator - Konrad Dobschuetz (National Director - NHS Innovation Accelerator & Chief Enterprise Officer - UCLPartners)

Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Scrubbed in show. I hope you've all been keeping well this week. We have with us another guest. We have with us Konrad Dubschutz, who is the National Director for the NHS Innovation Accelerator as well as the Chief Enterprise Officer at UCL Partners. Prior to this, he spent a large degree of his time in the pharmaceutical industry. So we are super excited to have you on the show today, Konrad, how are you?

I'm really good, thanks for having me. Don't mind me drinking my coffee whilst we chat.

We did a bit of snooping around, looked at your LinkedIn, you know, listened to a few of your podcast episodes and we want to hear the origin of your career, the story. I know you had big positions at Pfizer Novartis, but tell us a young Conrad, you know, when you are getting your feet wet, entering the world of digital and marketing. Tell us about that. Let's start from there.

You mean when I still had hair in my head?

Yeah. That's all gone or about to, about to go. So thanks for the question, thanks for having me. It's really great to be here. I started off actually my sort of entrepreneurial journey started in school when I was doing my A levels and I'm not going to tell the whole story since then, but just when I pick something up. When I was 16, I opened my own company in school. So we used to organize concerts for people and funny enough, heavy metal concerts, like proper, you know, long hair and I did never had long hair hair, but we had a few heavy metal bands and I have a few friends that are in that space. Yeah. So we just charge them tickets and organize some stuff in the late afternoon and get people to listen to some, some music and would do a barbecue and all that money goes into the school, like into doing stuff culturally was never for me, but that was my first exposure to, to entrepreneurship.

So that brings me on to a question. Me and AMS had this debate literally last week. Do you think entrepreneurship is something you are born or do you think it is something you develop?

Yeah, great question. I think I don't usually call it entrepreneurship, I call it gift of the gap. And that's, I'm afraid that's. You born with that, but you're born with that, right?

Yeah.

Because seeing opportunity when it arises is difficult to, difficult to learn. And you know what? It's okay that not everybody can be and should be an entrepreneur or have the gift of the gap because quite frankly you need collaboration of a whole host of different Characters to get stuff done. You need people that are late adopters or they come along and then actually very often it's the later people that actually do the hard craft and do the work. Right. Whilst the entrepreneur and innovators already flying high somewhere else.

Again, I agree and thank you for reassuring people that you don't need to be entrepreneurship. I know we talk about a lot of entrepreneurs on the postcards, but everyone needs to be an entrepreneur. There are other skill sets and avenues to go through.

Abdul, if we're all entrepreneurs, in all honesty, we going to increase productivity in our country. Nobody. Yeah, because we're all running around with ideas and nothing's ever going to happen.

No, I agree. You seem to have this entrepreneurial trait at a young age. Tell us a bit more about your working career. What were the first few roles you did and why did you choose to go down that path?

Yeah, I think the biggest sort of experience I had in a younger life was running my own company in Germany. And that was, funnily enough, I didn't look like it. It was a fashion brand W. So I wasn't the designer and. But I did everything else for. We did that for about six years. And that world fashion retail is such a special space to be in on both ends of the spectrum. Right. It's, it's rewarding but on the other side it's the most backstabbing sector you can ever work in. So I managed to survive that for six years, but then company went bust in 2009. That's part of entrepreneurship. Right. Admitting defeat. And there was no more money in the system. The banks. I don't know how old you guys are, but you've, you've probably know this. 2008, there was no more money for anybody.

Yeah.

And the banks stopped lending. And in fashion retail, you, you live off the, you live off the bank and that's it. And if the bank says, well, we now need five more criteria fulfilled for you to be able to finance your production loan for your orders and you can't, you're done. And that was literally done. Yeah, but that left sort of the biggest impression that whole journey there. And what also left an impression is that how I got to the uk by packing everything in a van. My ex partner and I at the time, and then my little dog Lily, the van over to. To England with £500 in the pocket and a flat paid for two months in Streatham. And that was it. No jobs, no nothing. Because I felt strongly, or we at the time felt strongly we need to get out of Germany, get out of the country. It wasn't. Still is not the nicest place to live. I'm going to have to say that. And you just wanted to go, Conrad.

So what gave you the confidence to be able to pack up everything, move to a foreign country with only a few hundred pounds in your pocket and know that you'll be all right?

You know what? I can't remember. I think it was a choice to be able to be the own master of your destiny or to be beholden to other people's decisions. And I for one, don't want to be in the latter category. I just want to create the path for myself and for people around me so that there is a. You can always stand up and say, I decided this for me, and that's the thing, and I can stand by it. But if you sit there and wait for something to happen to you, you might not like what happens to you. So it was really the initiative doing that and that convinced that this is work, that this will work. But look, I mean, up to hindsight is a beautiful. It could have all gone completely wrong, right? I mean, in the UK, I started working call centers for 8.5 hour to be able to pay the rent, you know, but that's okay. It's fine. You know, you. You're high up and you low down again in life. And I don't mind. And that's why I've got huge respect for everybody that does any kind of job. I would never judge somebody that does a certain job by the job they're doing, because there's a reason why they're doing it.

Oh, wow. So to be fair, I didn't expect to hear any of that, actually. And it goes to show when I see you, what I've seen so far is you have this big senior leadership position, you worked in big pharma companies. And I never once thought about what is your journey, how did that origin story start? Which I think will surprise a lot of our listeners. And I'm actually glad you shared it. Having worked at the call center, what were the next few career moves you did? How did you kind of get more into digital marketing? What were the roles?

So I worked out of that space and I worked for Ipsos Mori, which a lot of people know. And I actually had to do the journey from Streatham on the hill all the way to Harrow on the hill with trains and everything. And that took me every day, about five hours in total. I hit £50 now. Yeah, makes you Laugh. I don't know. But yeah, I mean, after that I worked a bit of other jobs as well, like for an events company and this and that. But the biggest break I got was moving into E commerce. So a company called Digital River. They're still around. I cherish them a lot and a lot of people that I work with are still there and they're doing great stuff. And a SAS provider and I was client marketing manager basically for Canon G Healthcare, bit of Microsoft this and that and, and that was the first when you all like, like corporate digital experience. I mean, in the fashion time, the fashion brand, we were the first ones that had a Twitter account. Right. And all that stuff. And you had an E commerce shop that we built and. But that was sort of a little bit here and there. But the professional thing happened at Digital river. Four years I was there, quite a. Quite a journey. So working across like B2B. B2C as well. Then there are these things like, I don't know if you guys know this, like B2B2C. There's also B2B2B.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. You know, got all sorts of stuff going on in that space. But that was, that was the first corporate TE piece plus Digital.

What happened next? So you're there for a few years. Why move on? If this was your career break, why did you decide to move on? You know, career progression, better pay.

Well, I mean, better pay was one thing, although Digital does take good care of its employees. But you know what? I've got one. It's a benefit I have, but it's also a problem. I get bored easily and I just got a bit bored after four years and there were. There was no immediate sort of career progression from where I was. And so essentially I went out in the hunt for. For something else by sort of accident landed in this. In this sort of agency land where I then worked for the vast majority in and with MasterCard. The point is, Abdul, that there is a lot of skills that are transferable, like gift of the gap is one. Right. But how to create partnerships, how to corral people around a certain problem to fix or a cause. And that never goes away. I never knew anything about really E commerce before I joined Digital River. I knew nothing about fashion before I opened the fashion brand and I knew nothing about finance before I worked for MasterCard. It doesn't matter. The sector doesn't matter. What matters is the attitude and the soft skills you bring to the table. So that was two years and I had a, like MasterCard was pretty cool. I had a pleasure of working on activation of Champions League and a bit of this and that. And they've got Sport Assets and the Brit Awards and the agency is called Big Group and they're still around. It's a great company. So ultimately, Agency Land wasn't for me. Right. And that's for me. Again, look, this is fair statement. You, you're going to have to see where are your limitations. If you go against your own gut feel and your limitations, you're never going to be happy. So I, I survived pretty much for two years, I have to say, and. And then went into pharma, which you.

Can talk about just before we touch on that journey. I believe when entrepreneurs, they founded their own company, there's always an itch to go back. While doing this, did you at the back of your head think, I really need to get out, I really need to start another company? You know, what was, how do you balance that?

So I've got to start for you. Over 50% of health tech entrepreneurs are in their 40s. Okay. I'm 43 now, getting my age away. I know I don't look it, but so there is a, you know, you've got all this experience and then you say, like, okay, I'm going to do this now. I currently don't have the age and I never had it again. The reason why that is, is there is a. I think I, personally, I think I need a bit of stability in my life. Like, you know, and then within that, you can explore and do certain things, drive business, whatever that is. I think I, I found it out for myself. I. I kind of need that stability. Otherwise, it just gives me sleepless nights and drives me mad. What's important to acknowledge is, like, example, when the business went really bad in Germany and we had to close down and stuff, that was like, from a mental health standpoint, it was really tough period as well. Really tough. And it took me a while to get out of that, and I just don't want to go back to that space ever.

I think in the world of entrepreneurship, we always talk about the glamour, getting onto the podcast, the TechCrunch newsletter, and no one really talks about how difficult and lonely it can actually be as well. So, no. Thank you for highlighting all of that. So the next phase of your career goes into the world of pharma. What I want you to talk about a little bit is before actually going into the world of pharma, what were your thoughts about pharma before even going in? And then your thoughts during the process of you getting into it and then your process as you were in pharma, talk us about the different viewpoints that you've had.

It won't come to you as a surprise. And that was a leading question. I'm sure that my perception about pharma wasn't the best before I joined. Right. So I remember talking to my brother who lives in Germany the week I joined Pfizer, great company, great CEO. And I told him, look, I'm going to start working for the devil.

And I will never forget that. Right. And. And of course my view has changed. Right. Because you learn and you're actually less ignorant. So I would call this ignorance saying that, but that was the. My general perception. Right. So the initial drive working for Pfizer was because I wanted to do something else. There was a good opportunity and I needed the money. There you go. Right. I didn't join out of conviction and, and I think only sort of in the process of the first of the year in Pfizer. I started to like the culture, the people were really dedicated. And then you sort of get these nuggets where you feel like actually, you know what, what we're doing here makes sense. But I also want to highlight in my six years in pharma, I always had a leg outside. I never stepped fully into the pharma world and I was quite transparent to everybody I was working with because you need to have that eye of what else is going on and where the influences and what do other people think. Otherwise you get like get the tunnel vision.

And then what you mentioned you had one leg out. What does that mean? What were you doing?

I wasn't like making money somewhere else, but it's more mentally keeping a leg out. So listening to, to other voices as well, not maybe not the ones that call pharma definitely. Which I'm not too keen on anymore. But especially around the COVID crisis and the impact actually pharma has delivered there, but more making sure you have a viewpoint and you can put things into perspective.

Yeah.

You know, I mean a pharma company like look, life sciences company is there to serve. People will don't like me that much for saying that, but it serves the shareholders right. That's what. Because it's a corporate that has a quarterly earnings and that's what that is. But also without pharm you would have a child mortality rate of about 50%. Right. And a few other things wouldn't work quite well and our life expectancy will hover around 45. So let's just be clear, right?

No, absolutely. So, Conrad, talking a little bit about pharma, the reason why I asked that question, right, is so I'm not affiliated with pharma. I am a doctor by background, but I've never worked for them, no sponsors, nothing like that. Now with pharma, right? So they are responsible for a lot of the innovations that are being brought forward in healthcare. And recently we were at the HET conference, there was a really interesting discussion about the industry and whether there should be more collaboration between healthcare and the industry that is pharma. Now, obviously what you've just said about pharma, right. Everyone's got these misconception and preconceived ideas. They're just fueled by so and so, whatever they are, right? And we often forget that. What about the innovations they're responsible for? How do you think we can. First of all, is collaboration a good thing between the industry and healthcare? And then how can we get more collaboration going forward? Because the healthcare needs innovation going forward. We need innovation to serve that demand that's being put on the system. What do you see here?

Thank you. I definitely think there is a case for more collaboration between industry and industry for me is not just life sciences, that is pharma, it's also medtech, the electronics and Boston Dynamics of this world, right? So there's more and more and then emerging health tech companies as well. The big guns of this world. For, for a few reasons. Number one, knowledge. Knowledge. Knowledge exchange. I think that's, that's a key piece here. And when I was working in Novartis heading up the biome there will speak about it in a bit. But then also here, now in my new role, it's all about translation. So there's a pharma speech and there's an NHS speech and there's a health tech sector speech and this what? And that needs to be translated. So I always think if only we were to speak the same language and the same language it's not. Is as much as two countries that can't stand one another if they don't talk and if they put, don't put a translator in the middle, they will never understand each other. And ultimately what's going to happen is they're going to throw bombs at each other, right? And here the bombs would be lack of collaboration, more pharma companies moving out of the uk, a drop in the relevancy of the UK life sciences sector, less clinical trials, fewer jobs, prosperity drops, blah, blah, blah. Okay? And honestly guys, we see that it is starting to happen. So we need to do more for it not to happen. So I'm not, I'm just want to be clear, I'm not wanting to open the floodgates for the NHS to be privatized. It is a public good and it has to be a public good. Without the knowledge and the financial means of life sciences companies, we are not going to be able to solve the problems of our time.

Absolutely, I agree. And, and I imagine this goes on to your role at Novartis. How do you get that translation happening? Where are the platforms? It's happening. Where? Because we talk about these conferences one day, amazing, everyone's high and then two days later it disappears and it's again these spikes with no meaningful change. What would you say up practical steps to getting to that kind of collaboration and those open comms.

Abdul, the money, that's the only language here. So what I'm advocating for this is me as Conrad speaking personally. So I'm not speaking on behalf of the NHS obviously is a shared approach between industry and the taxpayer to accelerate adoption of health tech in the UK and actually today there was an announcement. 30 million fund for health tech adoption and acceleration. Personal opinion. Is 30 million enough? No need another zero and you need to do it annually. Yeah, but the point is the burden shouldn't be just on the taxpayer, it should be a shared burden. Why? Because if the system, like an academic health and Science Network and HSN like the one I'm working in with 50% of my job or any other taxpayer funded innovation entity, solves pathway problems in early diagnostic for cancer, why wouldn't a pharma company pay for that as well? We're solving their problems as well. And I've been recently at the roundtable Chatham House rule applies with some colleagues from Pharma organized by the abpi. And I've asked around the table and everybody said well for me it's early diagnostic is the main problem and it was basically 80% of them. So and I asked the question like so why are we not collating this together and with system you put in the same money that Department of Health puts in, we create an adoption fund and we solve problems with two or three vendors nationally. Yeah, that moves the needle, that accelerates early detection, cancer in particular. And that can solve a problem, not the pilot itis that we're seeing.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And Conrad, what about. So I was also discussing with another friend of mine, what about not just on the solution aspect. So when a solution does come out right and it is a commercial product. What about also sharing the rewards of that commercial product with the guys who provided data in the first place? Do you think that could ever happen? So say the NHS and the public funded bodies provided really good data pathways, etc. And from that an innovation, a drug or something came out. Do you think they then have a right to some of the profits so it goes back into that sort of ecosystem of also supporting further innovation?

Here you need to split out two things. You need to spit out innovative medicines, which quite frankly I'm not here to talk about. Right, so that's not my spiel, but I can talk about health tech. Right? And I think there is a case for probably not an equity play, but royalty. Because look, I mean, and you know this, what happens to UK entrepreneurs and innovators that also through the NHS Innovation Accelerator, we help to restart maturity and get the adoption in scale in the nhs. But look what the majority of them does. Don't blame them, they go to the US and to uae. But where did they get their innovation grants from? Sbri. This here is you guys paying for that. People listening us talking, we all pay for this. So for me there's a fair point to say for a certain amount of time if you've benefited from these taxpayer funded programs, you should look at a royalty scheme of playing back stuff in system and actually giving back. Right. Because some of those companies are, are very, very big now. Rather large actually. And some of them are going to be large like we've got on the NIA alumni, like ORCA Patients Knows Best, Health Navigator, the list is endless. And, and all these companies are making really well. And I'm also not saying they're making it just because of the NIA or sb. Doors were open, they got a push, then they made the right decisions. Fine, but give some back and, and absolutely, yeah.

And I think it's. Glad you echoed it. I think even in the hair, Hassan Chodi was chairing the session, was talking a lot about co creation, co production, everyone benefiting in the ecosystem. And like I said, it doesn't necessarily have to be equity, it can be royalty, revenue, access to information from pharma as well. Right. Not just us giving to them. And I think that brings us on to maybe some of the work you did at Novartis. Tell us a bit more about Biome and then we'll talk about kind of your current roles.

Oh, absolutely. Pleasure. In Novartis, I was brought on in 2020, leaving from Pfizer to head up the Biome which is their innovation lab. I headed that up for the UK and I had a team as well. And that was the interesting bit. It was a Congo role. Again, I like two hats, probably, I don't know because I get bored easily. Right. So heading up that, that innovation lab and. But also heading up a team that actually works on what we call customer solutions, innovators. So creating joint workings, or now collaborative workings with NHS entities from a pharma standpoint. So at any given time, the team that I looked after, brilliant gang of people, a lot of them, are still around there creating over 100 ongoing collaborative workings with the NHS, with ICSs, trusts, providers, whoever. And I learned so much there. And speaking about sort of that translation which we had before and how this is done, sometimes it's around trust and transparency. So if a problem emerged that Novartis, in a certain brand in oncology, whatever, had to solve what, what we would do, we would try to find a vendor that could help with that. Famously, we did a heart health call out where we were trying to find non invasive lipid testing. So non invasive means no blood. Okay. But any other body liquids. And turns out we didn't find any. But what the point. And I'm not going to talk about brandy, of course, but one of the problems in that Novartis had is how to identify patients that have a certain LDL C, I think over a certain level, but do that in the home in a more agile fashion. So ultimately these patients can be potentially eligible for a Novartis treatment. Right. That's usually the chain, is that translating of that need from pharma to the outside world, making sure they understand what we're talking about and then whoever comes in, making sure that what they're talking about is understood from a trust level, as in, hey, they can actually help us and their solution makes sense and it has legs into the ethic and compliance frameworks in the pharma company. Trust me, you do not want to rock up at the ethic and compliance hearing, I call it hearing in a pharma company without being properly prepared, they couldn't just rip you apart and you're going to run around, you're going to run away crying, and rightfully so. Right. Because they want to make sure patients don't get negatively impacted. Yeah, I've been a few times there. Pfizer, Novartis. And I don't want to go back into these meetings. I'm scared.

No, definitely that then brings me on to a nice way to kind of end the pharma journey. You have been working in the private sector per se. Why then switch into healthcare, NHS innovation, new cell partners. And I know you started both roles at the same time, I believe, with this double hat. So tell us a bit more about that transition.

So, I mean, this is by sheer chance, right? So Novartis was going through a bit of a change curve and I didn't, at the time, I didn't feel like that's. That I want to be part of that change and that's fine. That's a personal motivation to do that. And I just browsed the Internet, as one does these days, and I came across this sort of dual role, National Director and Chief Enterprise Officer. And I just clicked on the contact and got in touch with Chris Langs, which the CEO of your New Seal Partners with the pa and we had a chat, Chris and I, and the first thing, and you would second that, the first thing that I told him that I don't believe in accelerators.

And I still don't.

Why?

You know.

Yeah, tell us.

I can explain to you why I don't. Tell us why. So I believe in development of people, right. I believe in access, I believe in, in learning, in commercial thinking. But if you wrap that into the word acceleration, what are you accelerating? You're actually giving them a helping hand because the acceleration comes from them. So we're more like a, like a development program that ultimately provides the maturity for these fellows and their solutions, but also market access for adoption scale. And look, we've got 34 fellows on board now, year one, two and three, because the NIA is, it's a three year program which we're currently recruiting for, by the way. And I will say this many times again, probably a third of them, and you can see that after three years they may still be in a position where they are dependent on some brands, you know, hk, sb, R I. Right. Two thirds, you can see, hey, they cracked this. They're gonna, they're gonna make their way up and it's a proper sustainable business. And I tell you something, I think it's fine. You can't assume that out of 34 entities, every single one is going to go through the roof. That's impossible. And I think already saying that person, my personal assessment, 2/3 are going to make it. That's way more than you would think about VC land. Yeah, right there. Probably like 20% make it and the rest is all going nowhere. So the motivation to change. And you asked me and I do want to talk about this a bit, so the motivation to change was I wanted to be, be truly closer to patient impact because if you work six years in pharma, I told you about these little nuggets and. But they were just nuggets. Right. I want to be there when we bring patient needs, system needs, vendor, whatever together and magic happens. Like for example, early cancer diagnostic plugging, an NIA fellow cited with cytosponge diagnose cancer in the throat and stuff, really, really well. And that saves lives. You know, I mean and we're not, but we're not talking about accelerating or medicines uptake here. We're talking about helping people to get a stage one or two cancer diagnostics so they don't have to take meds or you can do it operationally and actually help them immediately and that's it. So that emotional piece was missing and trust me, I didn't do it for the money. Yeah, I mean that's for sure.

Yeah, we figured that.

But, and that that's okay. Like you know, I hired in like in the journey now the nia, but also UCL partner side. So many absolutely talented people and the people here are talented as well. I don't think anybody does it for the money. No, we do it because we have a purpose and we have a conviction that we really want to do something about all of this. And there is a problem and there is a, we have an ill health care system. Right. It's limping on one leg with crutches. Let's just be honest here. And we need to have, we just need to fix it.

No, thank you for sharing that. And I could sense the passion and the motivations and I'm sure it wasn't easy leaving kind of those senior commercial roles in this kind of big pharma world to come and help. For our listeners who we do have a lot of health tech entrepreneurs, founders. Tell us a bit more about the program. I know the recruitment is open, we're going to link it below and everything. Tell us a bit more what they can expect, what entails.

Yeah, happy to. So first of all, if you and I know there's a, there's going to be a link as well. But if you want to, if you happen to be on Google, just Google, NIA and NHS and then you have the website already really easy. So it's a three year fellowship program. It's a 50, 50 piece between you as a fellow as well as the actual innovation that you bring to the table. We're a program that helps you on the maturity journey to get from where you might want to be in terms of evidence, patient involvement, health inequality, commercial viability, sustainability. Net zero is a big element as well. And we can help you with our connections and with the team as well to get to that sort of gold standard maturity where in practice and in theory you are nationally adoptable. Is this going to happen the national level adoption? Unlikely. But what is going to happen is it opens you more doors to be adoptable, procurable, even in the. In the space of of icss. So and to enable this, we're working with a variety of entities. I mean I have regular conversations with nice mhra, but also we're going to start with. This might be an exclusive on this podcast here. We're going to start with the Crown Commercial service.

Oh, wow.

As well to get our fellows that apply now, but also the fellows on. On the legacy fellows on their framework. Because 75% of people don't get to work with the NHS that have a really cool solution because of barriers in procurement. And there's also really capable people in NHS England, Jackie Rock's team chief Commercial Officer. They're trying to get rid of so some of that procurement red tape and we're helping a lot with that. Market access is a key piece. We're very well linked into the Department of Health and Social Care. We're working with green NHS that is going to help you if you become a fellow to create your carbon reduction plans without which from 2028 you cannot have a contract in NHS England anymore. We are helping with health inequality assessments. Again, a key factor. One other key factor more and more will be how many have you involved patients in the development of your solution? It's a PPIE key factor. Just a bit about is it worth applying? And applications close 22nd of October. It's worth applying if you have a solution that is already live in the nhs, at least in one location. You don't need to have necessarily a solid contract in place, but it needs to be a running pilot that has real world evidence. We prefer clinical practice evidence, which is different to real world evidence. Right. So something is working properly in a healthcare setting and you also need to have a proper corporate structure in place, like you need to have a company and your solution needs to work. It just needs to work. What Tony Young does with his brilliant team around clinical entrepreneurship is more around the early stages. Right. So I really value Tony, the work he does. And you can almost argue that the nia, which is open to all, also internationally open, picks up some of those that are Then ready to come into the nia. Lastly, just quickly, we've got a five month assessment process. So clinical assessment, nice assessment, mhra. All those entities are going to look at your solution. There's an interview stage process, there is another two board NIA board approval stage processes. We're doing due diligence with, as I said, with Crown Commercial Service as well as with orca. There's a huge piece of work happening to make sure that whoever joins is ready to join.

It makes sense. And from the companies I saw, it's the next step up after the clinical entrepreneurship program. People that are a bit more active in life. We started this podcast with you, Konrad. We want to end it with you.

All right, okay, let's see.

You know, what are you most excited about in the. In the future of innovation and this transformation in nhs, you know, where can we see you in five years? Because one thing I have left, one thing I have learned so far, Conrad, is you like to move on, you like to try lots of different things. So that's what I'm most interested about.

Okay? So I tell you what my dream is. So in five years, I want to work in the space industry.

Oh, wow.

Oh, nice.

So that's. Well, why not, right? It's all about tech and innovation and there's a rather big gap up there to explore. I'm a huge Star wars and Star Trek. I'm one of those weird people that like both, you know, so there you go. I just admitted that. Don't hate me for it, but I can deal with both.

The new Obi Wan is really good on Disney plus, just saying.

And that's where I wanted, like five years would be cool, right? To be there. And within those five years, I think what we're going to have to do is help, number one sustain. And this sounds weird, right, but we're going to have to sustain where the NHS is right now. So we already, we do have a two week cancer rating target which gets the majority of cases fulfilled. If you rock up at an A and E. And I know people are waiting and that's horrible, but I tell you what, if you rock up with a small child and it needs to be seen because there are problems, you will get seen, right? And I think that part we need to keep. We need to keep the. We need to keep doctors, nurses that run the nhs. It's not people that sit in offices, it's people on the ground that run the nhs. We need to keep them engaged, motivated. I'm not here to talk about Salaries and strikes, of course, but we need to keep people on it. I think that's really important and that will help sustain the nhs. Where we can help is with automation, like risk stratification, diagnostic. But I tell you something else, Abdul, and both of you, is that ultimately the treatment is sitting in front of somebody is doing a surgery. You know, are we going to have in five years, robotic nano. Robot Nano robots removing cancer cells, potentially. Right. But we're still 10, 15, 20 years off from that, become accessible to lots of people. So we need people. Right. And you need to stay. So that's probably the key focus here. It's not so much about generative AI and. No, it's not like. No, it's just get the basics right and make sure people stay.

No, I agree. One of the questions I wanted to ask, and you touched on it, is there is so much innovation, so much cutting edge technology, tech, but the core of retention, recruitment, you know, the workplace culture is struggling so much and what you said. I agree it's about sustaining what we have now and just, you know, keeping it. But thank you, Conrad, for sharing that. This was, I have to admit, a podcast. You took in a very different direction, which I didn't expect. Yeah. Which is always interesting. And one thing we do find from listeners is you are in leadership positions and when people know your own personal story, your own career journey, your motivations, it changes the perception they have for the organizations people run, like yourself. So these are very important and it's a privilege for us to share it. So thank you once again, Conrad, for taking the time out to share your story.

Absolutely. Welcome. And again, call out to innovators to apply to the nia.

We will do. We will link it.