AHSN Archives - Health Innovation West of England

Working with BSW CCG to improve diabetes care

The West of England AHSN and Bath, North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire CCG (BSW CCG) are reaching the end of a 12-month project to improve care for patients with type 2 diabetes.

Since the project launched in February 2021, a community of practice has been established with 174 members from 58 practices alongside secondary care staff. 22 practices have made positive changes as a result of the project thus far, with a further 44 practices continuing to implement changes. Interim results show the percentage of BSW patients with type 2 diabetes in the high-risk category has reduced from 33.3% to 28.9%.

Hear more in this short video from Wiltshire GP and BSW CCG Diabetes GP Champion, Dr Julia Hempenstall:

The project used an innovative care framework which aims to support those living with type 2 diabetes. Multiple long-term condition frameworks, developed by UCL Partners, are freely available and they help practices manage large numbers of patients with long-term conditions, whilst empowering the primary care workforce and the patients themselves. This ten-minute summary video from UCLPartners outlines the approach and resources available.

BSW CCG chose to adopt this approach, utilising education and training, as part of a multidisciplinary team, with a focus on supporting practices with the greatest treatment gap and in areas of greatest deprivation. A treatment gap is the actual versus the target % of the population whose treatment has been optimised.

The AHSN have provided project management, developed local implementation resources and facilitated workshops and virtual events.

So far:

58 practices have joined the community of practice
Seven BSW primary care networks have all their practices either implementing or engaged with the approach
22 practices are implementing the approach with more planning to start in April 2022
33 delegates have attended motivational coaching training

The community of practice aims to connect clinicians across the CCG to improve their confidence in diabetes management and add a sense of belonging following two years of changes to usual work practices due to the pandemic. With these improved connections, practice resilience, workforce capacity and integrated diabetes care can also flourish.

Brian Leitch, Commissioning Manager at BSW CCG said:

“As commissioner for diabetes, it’s been great watching practices come together on their own terms in the community of practice, to share information and resources and to discuss how to best support their patients”.

An Advanced Nurse Practitioner working on the project said:

“This has streamlined how we work, reduced the burden on the practice through calls as well as helped support patients to become more responsible for their care. We have identified issues and improved staff and patient awareness of diagnosis as well as treatment of diabetes”

Director of Service and System Transformation at the West of England AHSN, Kay Haughton, said:

“The care frameworks have been a fantastic launch pad for us to support primary care colleagues in BSW. They offer a great opportunity to consider redesigning delivery of care, providing those with diabetes, and other long-term conditions, greater autonomy and support in self-management. It has been a privilege to work with our CCG and primary care colleagues to help transform services for people who have diabetes.”

BSW CCG will continue to progress the improvement programme with longer term impact measures reviewed in the next 12 months, including:

Reduced number of practice visits
Improvement in patient satisfaction
Downward trend in numbers of high-risk patients
Changes in medication and potential cost savings

The West of England AHSN will continue to support the roll out of long term condition care frameworks through a new blood pressure optimisation programme. The programme aims to prevent heart attacks, strokes, and vascular dementia in patients with hypertension.

Find out more about the West of England’s work to support those with long term conditions by contacting us.

Why every healthcare professional or commissioner has a role to play on No Smoking Day and beyond.

Posted on February 24, 2022 by Vanesther Hamer

Mark Juniper is a consultant in respiratory medicine at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon. He also works as a clinical lead at the West of England AHSN. Over the last year, Mark has been working on our adoption and spread safety improvement programme. This is part of a national programme using a collaborative approach between acute hospitals helping to deliver improved care for patients with respiratory problems such as severe asthma and COPD.

In this blog, Mark reflects on how vital it remains, as the adoption and spread programme draws to a close and we mark No Smoking Day on 9 March, that colleagues across healthcare systems encourage patients to stop smoking…

As a doctor who sees people with lung disease, I have spent a lot of time encouraging people to stop smoking. Smoking tobacco is the single most important cause of preventable death and illness and services that support smokers to quit are very cost effective. Every healthcare contact represents an opportunity to help smokers to quit. This starts with very brief advice and continues with the provision of treatments that help patients to stop. Ideally all of these people should be referred to specialist smoking cessation services. Sadly, this doesn’t always happen and in some areas, there is limited service provision.

No Smoking Day gives us a great opportunity to highlight the impact of smoking on health and help our patients to improve their health by quitting. Every hospital admission represents a chance both to identify current smokers and to provide them with advice and support to stop. Hospital admission is a particularly good area to focus on as people are not able to smoke while on the hospital ward. A short period of enforced abstinence gives us a chance to offer treatment that will help patients to quit.

I have been involved in quality improvement work in the NHS for much of the last ten years. For me, variation in how things are done has become a ‘red flag’ that identifies an opportunity for improvement. Sadly, smoking cessation is one of these areas. We don’t always ask people if they smoke and even when we do, we aren’t consistent in offering advice and treatment. Sometimes it can feel as if we are too busy even to take the time to offer brief advice. What this actually does is add to our future workload!

Over the last two years, hospitals across the West of England have been working together to deliver a group of interventions that reduce readmission rates for patients admitted with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This is one of the diseases caused by smoking and also one of the most common reasons for hospital admission. During this time, we have increased the referral rate to smoking cessation services in our hospitals from 41 to 58%. There is clearly lots more to do but every patient who quits will experience less ill health – and that will help to make us all less busy in the future. Surely a win-win like that is a good reason to act!

No Smoking Day is a call to all of us to take action – and that should include personal reflection if we ourselves are smokers. Everyone can play a part in helping smokers to quit. That includes healthcare professionals working in primary and community care, acute hospitals, mental health and maternity services. It also includes those with responsibility for designing and commissioning local services. Don’t forget the influence we can have on friends and family too. To make the most of all opportunities that will help improve health – remember that every contact counts. All of us can make a difference!

Polypharmacy: Getting the Balance Right.

Understanding the data webinars

The new AHSN Network Polypharmacy: Getting the Balance Right Programme aims to support local systems and primary care to identify patients at potential risk of harm and support better conversations about medicines by promoting shared decision making. One of the core principles of this is population health management.

To consider how best to understand and utilise available data, the AHSN Network and NHS Business Services Authority (BSA) are hosting a webinar on 24 March (which will be repeated on 6 April). The BSA will demonstrate how the polypharmacy prescribing comparators help us understand variation in prescribing of multiple medicines and identify patients more likely to be exposed to the risk of taking multiple, or combinations of, medicines.

The webinar will be introduced by Clare Howard, Chair of the Polypharmacy Prescribing Comparators Group and Medicines Optimisation Clinical Lead for Wessex AHSN.

We encourage attendance from AHSN Network nominated polypharmacy and clinical leads; ICS medicines optimisation leads and Primary Care Network (PCN) teams, including GPs and pharmacists.

Find out more and reserve your space.

Bringing together mental health teams to improve patient safety and health equity

On 30 November the South of England Mental Health Quality and Patient Safety Improvement Collaborative (known as the MHC) held an all-day learning event for mental health teams across the South of England. The event – held online – was an opportunity for sharing learning and networking, which has been particularly challenging for large geographic collaboratives during the pandemic.

Hosted by the West of England AHSN, the collaborative was created in partnership with the South West AHSN, and now includes Kent, Surrey and Sussex AHSN, Oxford AHSN, and Wessex AHSN alongside 16 mental health trusts across the south of the country. The MHC aims to improve the quality and safety of services for people with mental health conditions.

MHC learning events enable collaboration across the mental health sector in order to foster quality improvement (QI) approaches to patient safety, drive health equity and review progress against the ambitions of the NHS England Mental Health Patient Safety Improvement Programme (MHSIP), which includes reducing restrictive practice.

The event was chaired by Dr Helen Smith, chair of the MHC and National Clinical Lead for MHSIP with around 90 people joining the event from project teams across the South of England.

The event began with a presentation on experiencing, challenging and addressing inequalities from Chris Lubbe, NHS England. Chris was previously an anti-apartheid activist and acted as Nelson Mandela’s bodyguard. He therefore offered a unique insight into inequalities.

Sussex NHS Foundation Trust then presented on delivering a reducing restrictive project as part of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health.

This was followed by a World Café where colleagues from four mental health teams shared their experiences of reducing restrictive practice. This offered a vital opportunity to share learning and consider different approaches.

Presentations then followed from Cornwall NHS Foundation Trust on Reducing Restrictive Practice: Drivers linked to ‘Seni’s Law’; Creating conditions for learning, and finally QI approaches focused on the live, learn and lead methodology.

Following this event, members of the MHC will continue to meet regularly for QI coaching sessions and all-day learning events.

Feedback from attendees:

“Thank you for such a thought provoking presentation. The take home message for me is to dig deep and speak up and say something”.

“Really good ideas – we will be shamelessly stealing the calm cards in particular! Thank you”.

“What went well? Chris’ presentation to start off the day – an inspirational speaker. Amazing and really highlighted the inequalities within everyday life, including our own services. Also the interactive break out activities”.

If you would like to find out more about the MHC please email weahsn.transformation@nhs.net.

AHSN Network’s COVID Oximetry @home programme wins at the HSJ Awards 2021

England’s 15 AHSNs and the AHSN Network celebrated a win at the prestigious HSJ Awards ceremony in London on 18 November.

The team were successful in the patient safety category for the significant support Patient Safety Collaboratives and AHSNs provided to implement COVID Oximetry @home and virtual wards. The programme was delivered in partnership with NHS England and NHS Improvement, NHS Digital and NHSX, and helped thousands of people most at risk from COVID-19 to be safely supported at home, through remote self-monitoring of their oxygen saturation levels.

By May 2021 over 2000 patients in the West of England had been enrolled on either COVID Oximetry @home or COVID virtual wards. Read about our rapid and collaborative implementation of pulse oximetry services across the region, as well as our local case study.

The judges said:

“The judges felt that this was an outstanding example of a true system wide collaboration. This project not only touched the UK but positively impacted people’s lives across the world. The outcomes were positively overwhelming in relation to lives saved, bed day reduction and early admissions which improved mortality and morbidity rates. It was clear that this approach contributed heavily to the prevention of the NHS becoming overwhelmed during the pandemic. The patient testimonial demonstrated the real impact to individuals and added value to the presentation coupled with the passion and authenticity of the presenters.”

Natasha Swinscoe, Chief Executive Officer at West of England AHSN and national patient safety lead for the AHSN Network said:

“We are delighted to receive this award on behalf of all our partners, frontline staff and patients.

The AHSN Network was proud to lead the rapid implementation of the COVID Oximetry @home and COVID virtual ward programmes during the coronavirus pandemic. Success would not have been possible without our partners NHSX, NHS Digital and sponsors NHS England and NHS Improvement, who fully supported this innovative and novel pathway of care.

This award recognises collaborative working across health and care systems and we share this with NHS England and NHS Improvement, particularly the NHS@home team, regional and local CCG teams, NHSX, NHS Digital, our Patient Safety Collaboratives and clinical leads.

Learning from this innovative pathway has led to the development of other pathways such as a blood pressure at home initiative, part of our cardiovascular disease management portfolio of programmes in the AHSN Network.”

Cheryl Crocker, AHSN Network Patient Safety Director, said:

“We entered this award to showcase the extraordinary achievement of multiple partners, supported by regional Patient Safety Collaboratives, who came together to respond to the pandemic and keep patients safe. This national programme is estimated to have benefitted in excess of 40,000 people.”

The West of England and South West AHSNs were also shortlisted for Provider Collaboration of the Year award for PERIPrem (Perinatal Excellence to Reduce Injury in Premature Birth).

PERIPrem is a perinatal care bundle to improve the outcomes for premature babies across the West and South West regions. The bundle consists of a number of interventions that will demonstrate a significant impact on brain injury and mortality rates amongst babies born prematurely.

Welcoming Chief Executive Officers appointed to lead our new Integrated Care Boards

NHS England and NHS Improvement are recruiting new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) designates for all 42 Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) around the country. The three ICBs in the West of England region have recently made these appointments, and the West of England AHSN are delighted to continue working with our local systems, their boards and the new designate CEOs.

Shane Devlin has been announced as the Chief Executive designate of the new ICB for Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG).

Sue Harriman, CEO of Solent NHS Community and Mental Health Trust in Hampshire, has been appointed designate Chief Executive of the NHS Bath and Northeast Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire (BSW) ICB.

Mary Hutton, currently One Gloucestershire Integrated Care System (ICS) lead, has been appointed as CEO designate of the new Gloucestershire ICB.

Tasha Swinscoe, Chief Executive Officer for the West of England AHSN said:

“I would like to congratulate the three designate CEOs on their appointments. Here at the AHSN we’re looking forward to working with Shane, Sue and Mary and their teams to continue to support ICS priorities and the transition to the new ways of working with ICBs.

The AHSNs priorities are closely aligned to our member and system priorities – by working together we’ll continue to support ongoing system transformation and adoption of proven innovations around tackling health inequity, providing more integrated, patient-centred care and the Sustainable NHS agenda”.

What is an Integrated Care Board (ICB)?

At the end of March 2022, the functions of all Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) will transition to ICBs. This is part of the Health and Care Bill, currently going through Parliament, which sets out plans to put Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) on a statutory footing, empowering them to better join up health and care services, improve population health and reduce health inequalities.

Each ICS will be led by both an ICB (the organisation with responsibility for NHS functions and budgets, formerly the CCG), and an Integrated Care Partnership (ICP), a statutory committee bringing together all system partners, including local authorities, to produce a health and care strategy. Find out more on the NHS website.

The ICB will work collaboratively with partner organisations including the AHSN, VCSE sector and people and communities in each Integrated Care System (ICS).

Spotlight on Inclisiran

Posted on October 26, 2021January 12, 2022 by Vanesther Hamer

October was National Cholesterol Month, and our team have been busy hosting a series of lipid optimisation education sessions; launching the new Child Parent Screening pilot for Familial Hypercholesterolaemia; increasing adoption and spread of lipid optimisation pathways and preparing to roll out Inclisiran to complement current treatments. Read more about our Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (FH) and Lipid Optimisation programme.

In this blog, Clare Evans, Deputy Director of Service and System Transformation at the West of England AHSN, tells us more about Inclisiran and how local systems can get involved….

If you listen to the radio or read a newspaper it won’t be long before you hear the word ‘Cholesterol’. In my experience as a former nurse cholesterol can be seen as something only some of us have but we all have a level of cholesterol in our bodies. The question is whether each of our levels of cholesterol is ‘good’ or whether it’s high and could be doing us harm and lead to cardiovascular disease (CVD).

CVD is a health equity issue

CVD has been identified in the NHS Long Term Plan as the biggest single area where the NHS can save lives in the next ten years – 150,000 to be exact. Heart disease causes one in four deaths in England, and two in five people in England are thought to have high cholesterol. These stats make sobering reading. We also know that those living in areas of multiple deprivation are more likely to be affected by CVD. If we’re serious about tackling health inequity, CVD and cholesterol is one of the most significant areas to focus on.

Through the AHSN Network’s Lipid Optimisation and Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH) programme we have been making significant progress in the West of England region. The programme includes working across our region’s three systems to increase the diagnosis and treatment of FH patients, including young people and children. Some of us may be pre-disposed to CVD because of FH – an inherited condition passed down in families. FH can lead to extremely high cholesterol levels. It affects 1 in 250 people in the UK, yet over 90% of cases are still undiagnosed. Our new pilot, also taking place across six other AHSN regions in England, will use a heel-prick test to identify FH in children and subsequently their families.

So where does Inclisiran come in?

Before now if a patient was on the maximum dosage of statins, had been prescribed Rapid Uptake Products such as ezetimibe or PCSK9i and their cholesterol levels were not decreasing, options were limited. But now Inclisiran can support these patients.

Inclisiran injections use a biological process where molecules can shut down protein translation to help the liver remove harmful low density lipoprotein cholesterol (which are often simply referred to as ‘bad cholesterol’) from the blood. Inclisiran can be used with statins or on its own.

In line with NICE guidance, Inclisiran won’t be available to all patients with high cholesterol and can only be prescribed if someone has had a CVD event such as a heart attack or stroke. Inclisiran provides a new option when other treatments are not working – it can reduce cholesterol levels by 50%.

What’s next?

The Accelerated Access Collaborative are responsible for the implementation of the Inclisiran partnership. Now that Inclisiran is available to NHS patients in England, AHSNs, as the delivery partner, are working to ensure that the new treatment fits seamlessly within the lipids care pathway.

Locally we’ve therefore started conversations to discuss Inclisiran and how it complements the current lipid-optimisation pathway for a specific subset of patients. It’s our job at the AHSN to hear about any local barriers or challenges to Inclisiran uptake and work collaboratively with systems to try and remove these.

Inclisiran remains one part of the lipid optimisation pathway, so we’ll be complementing our ongoing programme, so all of those with CVD see benefits rather than ‘just’ those who will be able to receive Inclisiran.

We’re also working to ensure our systems are fully briefed on the Accelerated Access Collaborative’s revised lipid pathway (which is currently being developed).

How do I get involved?

If your work is related to CVD and lipids optimisation in the West of England region whether that be as an Integrated Care System lead, in a Trust, Primary Care Network, General Practice, pharmacy or as a local lipid specialist, please get in touch with me, clare.evans14@nhs.net or my colleague Rachel Gibbons, rachel.gibbons10@nhs.net so we can discuss how Inclisiran can be adopted by your organisation.

In addition, there is a comprehensive cholesterol awareness and education campaign targeted at health care professionals involved in lipids management which can be accessed on the Heart UK website.

AHSN Network has benefited more than 479,000 patients and generated £322.3 million inward investment for UK economy

The innovation delivery arm of the NHS, the AHSN Network, has released its Impact Report 2018-2020. The report highlights outstanding impacts achieved by AHSNs, including the West of England, and evidences how they are driving adoption and spread in healthcare innovation, transforming patient outcomes, enabling efficiencies, saving the NHS money, generating economic growth and attracting millions of pounds of investment for the country’s economy.

The report also details how AHSNs have mobilised quickly to COVID-19 to support the NHS and health and social care response.

National programmes

Commissioned by NHS England, England’s 15 AHSNs delivered seven programmes during 2018-20, developed regionally and selected for national adoption and spread, which are benefiting more than 479,000 patients: Atrial Fibrillation, Emergency Laparotomy, ESCAPE-pain, PINCER, Prevention of Cerebral Palsy in PreTerm Labour (PReCePT), Serenity Integrated Mentoring (SIM) and Transfer of Care Around Medicines (TCAM).

Key national programme findings from the report show that 13,387 fewer patients are at risk from harm from medication errors as a result of PINCER. The Network’s atrial fibrillation work has helped prevent 11,734 strokes and saved 2,933 lives. Whilst 8,472 people with chronic joint pain have participated in ESCAPE-pain courses.

AHSNs also play a key role in supporting the NHS to adopt new, better and more effective technologies through playing a leading role in supporting the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC), by operation as the local agencies to drive adoption of Innovation and Technology Payment (ITP) and Rapid Uptake Products (RUPs).

Economic growth

From 2019-2020, the AHSN Network has generated almost £322.3 million inward investment for our nation, and created and / or protected over 1,000 jobs during this time.

The AHSN Network helps mobilise the value that the NHS can add as an economic asset to the UK economy. AHSNs broker access to a range of expert support and services across the health and care sectors that support NHS innovators and companies to realise the commercial and economic potential of their ideas.

The latest round of company surveys conducted by the AHSN Network show remarkable progress in the health innovation sector. Find out more about how the AHSN Network has attracted millions of pounds of investment for the country’s economy.

Patient safety

England’s 15 Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSCs) have significantly contributed to the NHS Patient Safety Strategy through their work on managing deterioration, maternity and neonatal safety, and adoption and spread programmes.

PSCs play an essential role in identifying and spreading safety improvement programmes (SIPs) to create sustainable and continuous improvement in settings such as maternity units, emergency departments, mental health trusts, GP practices and care homes.

Successes include spreading the National Early Warning Score (NEWS2) to 99% of all acute hospital trusts, a 92% uptake of a discharge care bundle for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and more than 120,000 views of a series of training films developed for care home staff.

Review our regional Patient Safety programme here.

COVID-19

To support the COVID-19 response AHSNs pivoted their expertise and resources, highlighting their unique ability to be able to work with regional health systems to spread innovation, whilst collaborating across England to drive rapid transformative change across large geographies.

Key examples of AHSNs responding to the pandemic include; providing expertise to NHS regions, by embedding staff in regional COVID-19 response cells, which was equivalent to 157 full time staff. And working with NHSX and NHS Digital, AHSNs help to drive digitisation of primary care, achieving a near-total uptake of video and online consultations in two months across GP practices in England. We also published a rapid-learning report on our patient safety work, ‘Safer care during COVID-19’.

By autumn 2020, AHSNs were continuing to support the COVID-19 response whilst providing expert input to regional NHS planning around the restoration and recovery of services. Nationally, AHSNs have also been leading the NHS ‘Reset’ campaign with NHS Confederation and the Health Foundation and have been playing a key supporting role in the NHS Beneficial Changes Network, focusing on ‘locking in’ learning from the pandemic.

Find out more about how we are working with health and social care colleagues across our region to keep people safe during and after COVID-19.

Piers Ricketts, Chair of the AHSN Network and Chief Executive of Eastern AHSN said:

“We are achieving results that make a real difference for patients and service users, as well as healthcare professionals, innovators and NHS organisations. These strong foundations make us ideally placed to help all those involved in improving and innovating health and care to tackle together the challenges that lie ahead.

The AHSNs’ response to COVID-19 has highlighted how our core strengths and ways of working have proved a valued asset to our partners. AHSNs are agile and well connected organisations, and we were able to mobilise and respond to this new crisis almost overnight, providing additional support and brokering relationships across health and care, research and academia, industry and the voluntary sectors.”

New national programmes

From April 2020, AHSNs are working on three new national programmes;

Focus ADHD; a number of AHSNs are working with mental health trusts and community paediatric services to improve the assessment process for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) using computer-based tests (measuring attention, impulsivity and activity).
Early Intervention Eating Disorders; a number of AHSNs are supporting mental health teams across England to speed up diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders in young people aged 16 to 25.
Lipid management and FH; AHSNs are scoping a national programme of work around cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention, which is anticipated to start in autumn 2020.

Review our regional work on FOCUS ADHD and Early Intervention Eating Disorders.

AHSNs continue to support national NHS initiatives such as the National Innovation Accelerator (NIA), Small Business Research Initiatives (SBRI) and Clinical Entrepreneurs programme and developing work on new and emerging NHS priorities such as workforce innovation.

Read the full AHSN Network Impact Report 2018-2020.

Applications for the NHS Innovation Accelerator are now open!

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 passionate individuals from any background, including SMEs, clinicians, charity/third sector and academics.

In alignment with the current NHS priorities of COVID-19 Reset and Recovery, innovations put forward this year must address at least one of the following themes:

NHS response to COVID-19
Mental health
Supporting the workforce

The application period is open until 16 October 2020 at midnight.

This list of Frequently Asked Questions explains the NIA in more detail, who can apply, the selection process, what support an NIA Fellow 2021 can expect. We recommend reading this document before applying to the NIA or contacting us about your application.

Interested in applying?

Visit the NIA website to learn more about the application criteria and process, register for informational webinars, and access the online application portal. Webinars will be held on 8, 9, 22 September and 8 October.

Our Business Development team are available to support you and answer any questions you may have. Please do not hesitate to contact us, you can email: innovation@weahsn.net

Read about a local 2020 NIA Fellow

On 5 March 2020, the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) announced 11 high impact innovations joining the national accelerator in 2020, including one developed here in the West of England: The WaterDrop. Read more about The WaterDrop and their journey to becoming an NIA 2020 Fellow.

About the NHS Innovation Accelorator (NIA)

The NIA is an NHS England Initiative highlighted in the NHS Long Term Plan. It accelerates uptake of high impact innovations for patient, population and NHS staff benefit, and providing real time practical insights on spread to inform national strategy.

The NIA supports individuals (‘Fellows’) with a set of values and passion for scaling evidence-based innovation to benefit a wider population, with a commitment to share their learnings.

Since launching in July 2015, the NIA has delivered the following (these stats do not include data from the latest rounds of Fellows, unveiled in March 2020):

2,214 additional NHS sites using NIA innovations
£134.8m external funding raised
486 jobs created
113 awards won
45 innovations selling internationally
NIA innovations save the health and social care system £38m per annum, according to conservative figures from independent evaluations by York Health Economic Consortium.

Sharing learning from our QI Summer Series

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 mean feat in a world where virtual fatigue is setting in.

Before and during the series our Academy team compiled their thoughts and tips on hosting learning sessions via webinar: To download the slides as a PowerPoint, please click here.

In the coming weeks, our Academy team will also be sharing a Getting Started with QI Guide alongside a blog about their experiences organising and leading the QI Summer Series.

The West of England Academy will be hosting further QI webinars, alongside other virtual events.

You can browse the full range of AHSN events here.