Category > Health Innovation West of England

Innovating for economic growth

Blog article

Steve West, Chair, West of England AHSN and Vice-Chancellor, University of the West of England and Chair, West of England Local Enterprise Partnership on the challenges and opportunities for health, care and the economy, and how the AHSN can help to meet them. Who would have imagined six months ago that we would be in…

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COVID-19: a common purpose

Blog article

In the first of our series looking at how healthcare is changing to manage COVID-19, our Chief Executive Natasha Swinscoe considers the factors that helped those on the front-line respond quickly and effectively. There has already been a lot written on the lessons learned from dealing with the pandemic. Many have commented on the positive…

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Applications for the NHS Innovation Accelerator are now open!

News

The NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) – an NHS England initiative supported by England’s 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) and hosted at UCLPartners – has launched its call for applications representing high impact, evidence-based innovations. Successful applicants will become 2021 NIA Fellows. The call is open to local, national and international healthcare innovations supported by…

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Sharing learning from our QI Summer Series

News

During July and August 2020 the West of England Academy, aided by guest facilitators and speakers, held weekly Quality Improvement (QI) webinars. This season of learning, known as the QI Summer Series, was fully booked with a lengthy waiting list. We are also delighted to say the series received 100% positive feedback from attendees, no…

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Supporting Care Homes: Transfer of Care Around Medicines

News

Since 2018, as one of the AHSN Network’s national adoption and spread programmes, Transfer of Care Around Medicines (TCAM) has been an important medicines safety project for the West of England AHSN. Upon discharge from hospital, 30-70% of patients experience unintentional changes to their medications or an error is made because of a miscommunication. 37%1…

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Introducing the quality improvement (QI) summer series

News

We are hosting a series of five online workshops from 29 July to 26 August on quality improvement (QI). Free to attend, and for any innovator or employee within healthcare, each two-hour session is standalone so you can choose individual workshops or sign up for the series. Each workshop will be highly interactive, so you…

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Healthcare Innovation

HSJ Patient Safety Award Nominations

News

Two of the West of England AHSN’s member organisations have been nominated across five categories in the 2020 HSJ Patient Safety Awards. Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership Trust (AWMHP) received three nominations: Learning Disabilities Initiative of the Year (Improving Patient Safety on the Daisy Unit), Mental Health Initiative of the Year (Reducing Restrictive Practice…

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Supporting the response to COVID-19

News

Now that our partners across the NHS and social care are mobilising at scale in response to the developing COVID-19 pandemic, the role of England’s 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) is to support them by helping them take full advantage of the most relevant innovations and technologies that can improve care for patients and support our services in this challenging context.

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Paramedics arrive at someone's home

Calculating early warning scores before they reach hospital can help the sickest patients

News

Recording National Early Warning Scores (NEWS) when a patient is urgently referred to hospital can improve the process of care for the sickest patients and reduce the time taken to get to hospital, according to a West of England AHSN supported study funded by National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) at the University of Bristol…

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Care home resident having blood pressure checked

New online video training for care home staff

News

Wessex and the West of England Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs), and West Hampshire CCG, funded by Health Education England, have collaborated to produce a series of free videos and e-learning materials to support staff working in care homes to care for residents who are at risk of deterioration. As recognised in a recent paper…

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