In the past, healthcare innovation has come from the same few sources, typically academic institutions, research facilities, and commercial laboratories. However, military labs have been gaining traction as unexpected sources of medical innovation, and could offer solutions to some of the most pressing challenges facing the NHS, including antimicrobial resistance.

One of the biggest priorities for the NHS this year is improving A&E waiting times. While the NHS pledges to see 95 per cent of A&E patients within 4 hours, there has been a sustained decline in performance against this waiting time standard over the years, contributing to overcrowding in hospitals. Combined with shortages of beds and NHS staff burnout, there is a definite need for improvement. How can the NHS successfully combat these issues to ensure a high standard of healthcare is maintained well into the future?

Pressing NHS challenges

The NHS is facing a healthcare crisis, with hospital bed shortages and mounting wait times threatening patient care. As of this January 2025, 27 per cent of people in A&E waited more than four hours to be admitted, transferred or discharged – compared to 17 per cent in 2020. Overwhelmed hospitals are struggling to meet growing demand, with staffing shortages leaving NHS employees stretched to their limits. Nurses, doctors, and support staff have been leaving their posts at an alarming rate, driven by high workloads and low morale. These compounding challenges undermine the NHS’s ability to provide timely and effective healthcare, putting patients and medical professionals alike in an increasingly urgent situation.

Additionally, the rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in hospitals has the potential to render current antibiotic treatments useless. Declared a top 10 global public threat by the World Health Organisation (WHO), AMR threatens the foundations of our healthcare systems’ treatment plans, making infections harder to treat and increasing the already existing strain on the NHS. The healthcare landscape is evolving quickly, and the NHS must act now to secure operational efficiency for years to come.

New pathways to innovation

In the past, healthcare innovation has come from the same few sources, typically academic institutions, research facilities, and commercial laboratories. While many scientific advances have come from these traditional pathways, it is a narrow ecosystem that often stifles creativity, operating within rigid frameworks of funding and commercial viability. Interestingly, military labs have been gaining traction as unexpected sources of medical innovation.

Everyday technologies like GPS and the microwave stem directly from military technologies. These technologies – having clear potential to benefit civilian life – were then marketed to the public. This too can be true for innovations in healthcare settings. Take, for example, the ambulance. Developed during the First World War, the first ever motorised ambulances were developed to transport wounded soldiers. The idea for these motorised ambulances emerged from necessity: the need to rapidly evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefield. These ambulances could transport multiple patients simultaneously across challenging terrains, also providing a space to carry out initial treatment. Their post-war adoption was due to their effectiveness and clear life-saving potential, eventually becoming standard in the medical field.

Military technologies: Purpose-built for challenges

Military technologies possess unique characteristics that make them particularly suitable for addressing challenges in healthcare systems. They are designed for reliability in high-pressure environments and rapid deployment – conditions similar to today’s overcrowded A&E departments.

Military technologies are developed with operational efficiency as a requirement, to be deployed under extreme conditions, creating a unique pipeline of innovations that might never materialise through traditional market forces alone. Haemostatic agents are a key example. These were first created to save soldiers’ lives in critical moments, like in cases of trauma, but they quickly proved useful in civilian medical settings. On the frontlines, medics prioritise saving lives through rapid and efficient treatment – similar to healthcare systems like the NHS. The high-pressure, time-critical nature of battlefield medicine produces innovations that translate directly to hospital environments, where every second can mean the difference between life and death. Haemostatic dressings were invented as a way to stop bleeding on the battlefield and are now a standard tool in surgeries and emergency care.

These technologies are also developed to be extremely cost-effective, requiring minimal financial investment while delivering maximum impact. Military research demands technologies that can be produced at scale, using limited resources and functioning across diverse environments. This approach means each innovation must be capable of treating large numbers of personnel or patients. For the NHS, these characteristics could be transformative. These inventions could be adaptable to available NHS resources, or even deployable on existing infrastructure, like repurposing PCR machines that were a key investment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By identifying technologies with high potential and supporting them through to commercialisation, specialist companies such as Ploughshare enable scientific breakthroughs to move from government labs to benefit the wider world. One such example is Presymptom Health. Born from defence research at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), Presymptom developed groundbreaking infection detection technology that tackles some of the NHS’ challenges using existing equipment. Their InfectiClear® diagnostic platform is compatible with the most commonly used PCR infrastructures across the country and can detect infections up to three days before symptoms appear. This compatibility means implementation requires minimal additional investment.

Recent clinical trials were conducted at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust and eight other NHS sites. Early results indicate InfectiClear® may be more than 95 per cent accurate at ruling out lower respiratory tract infection – a significant improvement on the standard of care. This has the potential to improve patient outcomes through earlier diagnosis and reduce hospital overcrowding by ruling out infection. It also contributes to tackling the threat of AMR by reducing unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions.

As healthcare systems globally continue to face increasing pressures there are potential solutions in government labs that could transform healthcare delivery. By investing time, attention and resources into bringing these innovations into general use, we could develop a more stable and resilient healthcare system in the UK.