Marta Passadouro, InnoStars representative in the EIT Health Ecosystem in Portugal, led a two-day visit of Portuguese academics and clinicians to London that included networking between universities and health bodies in the UK and Portugal.

The aim of the visit was to showcase the "British innovation ecosystem", particularly in terms of training healthcare professionals and the strategy for commercialising the assets of the British public health system (NHS).

"We have a sustainability problem in Portugal and this is a great opportunity to understand how they are doing it here," Passadouro told the Lusa news agency.

The person in charge hopes that this initiative, organised in conjunction with the British Embassy in Portugal, will allow "people to be aligned and create a sharing of ideas and experiences as a first step towards creating avenues for collaboration".

The EIT Health InnoStars Ecosystem Programme aims to foster healthcare innovation in European regions through a network of industry partners, universities, hospitals and research centres in countries such as Hungary, Italy, Poland and Portugal.

Marta Passadouro revealed that one of the NHS's leaders in innovation, Tony Young, was in Portugal this year and visited the Hospital de Santa Maria.

He also mentioned that there are already collaboration projects between Portuguese and British medical institutions.

Opportunities

The leader of the international engagement team at the British Department of Health, Fatima Wurie, valued the EIT initiative and "the opportunities" for mutual learning between the UK and Portuguese health systems.

"Learning and exchange between health systems are very important for innovation in health care. This knowledge will be important, not only for the way we cooperate internationally, but also for the way we drive the implementation of our health policies," he told Lusa.

The British Government has chosen to reform the public health system as a priority, investing in technology to improve efficiency in terms of human and financial resources.

Cambridge University Spatial Planning professor Elisabete Silva, who participated in the first day of the visit, told Lusa that "both countries have a lot to learn".

In the United Kingdom, he praised, for example, the analysis and sharing of existing data in the NHS with independent organisations, such as scientists or the social sector, but he thinks that Portugal is better "in terms of digital platforms for making medical information available because it creates a relationship of trust between the doctor and the patient".