On Wednesday 13 November, health and care innovators, industry leaders and visionaries from across the West of England and beyond came together at UWE Bristol’s Enterprise Park for our one-day conference.
The theme of the day was ‘Connect, Innovate, Transform’ and offered an opportunity for delegates to make connections across our local health and care innovation community, to share ideas and learning and to provide a springboard for co-creating new approaches across system, organisational and sector boundaries.
Our goal was to give colleagues much-needed headspace away from their day jobs to focus on the important as well as the urgent, providing ideas and inspiration, practical tools and resources. Attendees have told us they came away with a better understanding of how innovation can help tackle health and care challenges and found it a good opportunity to connect with others and learn from the work they are involved in.
We listened to the feedback from delegates at our 2023 conference at Bristol Aerospace, by ensuring that this year’s event featured more input from industry and innovators, provided more interactive sessions, and used a venue with good public transport links. Sustainability was high on our agenda and we operated a shuttle bus service from the train station, used local suppliers for audiovisual support and catering, and used recycled and reusable materials wherever possible.
The Innovation Zone
Conference delegates had the opportunity to explore a dedicated Innovation Zone, featuring a carefully curated showcase of 20 cutting-edge health and care solutions and services.
A series of three fascinating panel discussions also took place on the Innovation Zone mini-stage during the day, exploring the three key stages of an innovation’s journey on the path to adoption and spread across our health and care systems: discovery, development and deployment.
Read more about the Innovation Zone and watch the panel discussions here.
A year of change
Our Chair, Steve West, and Chief Executive, Natasha Swinscoe, gave a warm welcome to all our delegates, opening the event with a review of the last 18 months since our last conference and setting the context for the conversations to come.
“An awful lot has changed in the political and local landscape since we were last here,” explained Natasha. “We have changed our name for a start, which now succinctly and clearly describes our role. The change of name was part of the relicensing of the Health Innovation Networks by the government and NHS England for a further five years, reaffirming our mandate as the innovation arm of the NHS and social care.”
Since then we have of course had a change of government and a new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, who has launched a national conversation on the future of the NHS.
Streeting also commissioned a rapid investigation of the state of the NHS by Lord Darzi. The major emerging themes emerging from Darzi’s report for a new 10-year plan include: re-engaging staff and re-empowering patients; shifting care closer to home and bringing together primary, community and mental health services; driving productivity in hospitals; tilting towards technology; and contributing towards the nation’s prosperity.
Our new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has promised a new Industrial Strategy by spring 2025, with the recent publication of the government’s green paper.
And alongside all this, Roland Sinker, Chief Executive of Cambridge University Hospitals and the Chair of the Shelford Group, has been leading work to review and address ongoing challenges in the adoption and spread of innovation and drive improvements in the health innovation ecosystem, which aims to generate real change and shift the way that the NHS does business with industry.
Natasha described the role of the Health Innovation Networks as “bringing together anyone with a stake in innovating and improving the health and care of the populations we serve.” She continued: “We’re very proud of the role we’ve played for the last decade in connecting and brokering relationships with all those who need to be involved. Today’s conference is an important opportunity for us all to come together and explore collectively some of the most pressing issues of the moment.”
Health is wealth
We were delighted to welcome Jordan Cummins, UK Competitiveness Director for the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) as our first keynote speaker of the day. We invited Jordan to share his thoughts with us on how he sees the relationship between health and wealth.
Jordan considered how the business community can play a stronger role in delivering the strategic ambitions of our health and care services, and why is it in their interest? Conversely, why should the NHS and social care value the contribution of industry and take the time to develop meaningful collaborations? What broader role does the NHS have in driving economic growth?
Talking about the new government, Jordan commented: “They have come out of the traps fast on public sector transformation and public sector pay. And we have a health secretary who describes the NHS in part as an ‘economic ministry’. Long gone are the times that health and wealth are two separate discussions and ‘thou shalt not meet’.”
Watch Jordan Cummins’ talk here.
Reducing friction in the innovation journey
Our second keynote speaker of the morning was Hassan Chaudhury, a wearer of very many hats, including Commercial Director of DATA-CAN and Head of Commercial for Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust.
Hassan has a global view of digital health, care and life sciences, and he used these insights to shape his five-point argument on how we might reduce friction in the innovation journey.
“We need health innovation at scale, but we make it needlessly difficult for innovators,” Hassan told the audience. “We expect scale but without the infrastructure of scale.” Hassan described how he deliberately works across the ecosystem, enabling him to see both sides, as buyer and vendor.
Hassan then went on to discuss what he considers as “the seven interconnected principles for adoption and spread”: complexity – spread and adoption in health and care is a complex activity; leadership – an enabling leadership style is needed; the individual – the perspective of the individual is pivotal; benefit – focus on the benefit rather than the innovation; adopter focus – support adopters to have a sense of agency and feel energised; networks – build communities, energising and connecting individuals; and learning – develop a habit of learning, sharing and seeking knowledge.
Watch Hassan Chaudhury’s talk here.
Panel sessions and workshops
Delegates were offered a rich and varied programme of breakout sessions and practical workshops to choose from, picking up on many of the key themes raised by our keynote speakers.
Our Evaluation and Insights team hosted an interactive workshop designed to get delegates thinking in different ways about their approaches to evaluation, while our Academy team ran a series of hands-on learning sessions, helping people at key stages on their own innovation journeys.
Panel discussions covered the role of health and life sciences in driving regional economic growth, the need for anti-racist leadership in the NHS, the role of the VCFSE sector in driving health inequalities, and how we support our workforce to be more innovative. Recordings of the panel sessions are available to watch here.
Harnessing the power of partnerships
The final keynote speech of the day was a national perspective delivered by Verena Stocker, Director of Innovation, Research and Life Sciences Strategy at NHS England and Managing Director of the Accelerated Access Collaborative.
Innovation and research are key contributors to economic growth. Life sciences drive wealth creation across the UK and are a key pillar of our economy with tangible benefits for populations, staff and systems. Populations benefit through earlier access to life-changing innovations, improved access, reduced health inequalities and personalised solutions. Staff benefit through enhanced career paths and opportunities to work in a flexible and empowered health and care system. Systems and the economy benefit in terms of a more efficient NHS that selects the best innovations based on evidenced horizon scanning and a simplified and streamlined system.
Through the Accelerated Access Collaborative, we are convening stakeholders around the system – government, industry, trade organisations, and academia – to think about how we set priorities for innovation, how we streamline our pathways, how we deliver against our programmes? Coordination across sectors and organisations is more important than ever, as is horizon scanning and demand signalling. What are the big innovations coming down the line that we should be getting ready for now, and what’s the demand that we’re hearing in providers across the country? How do we let industry know what those demands are and then ultimately matchmake services to better align products and technologies on offer with genuine demand from the system and citizens?
Despite the challenges we face, Verena says she is optimistic about the future. Innovation and research are essential to improving the nation’s health outcomes, as they play a crucial role not only in improving and enhancing patient outcomes but also in improving the efficiency, productivity and sustainability of the NHS. Continued investment in these areas is required for maintaining and improving health services in the UK. And according to Verena, the Health Innovation Network continues to play an essential role in enabling collaboration by bringing together stakeholders, facilitating sharing of best practice and building capability and a culture of innovation in healthcare.
Thank you
We have to say a huge thank you to all our speakers, panellists, exhibitors and delegates, our events company Autumn Live, our photography and film crew organised by George Chan, and all our Health Innovation West of England colleagues for helping out on the day and in the run up.
Posted on December 6, 2024
