Hello my name is Jo-Anne…
New healthtech agreement to help solve Region’s hardest health challenges
Now, more than ever, we are surrounded by help and advice about how to stay healthy and well. Most of us carry around in our pockets a world of online resources and information via our smart phones, as well as gadgets and gizmos we can use to measure and monitor things like our diet and exercise levels. So there’s a lot we can do to help ourselves.
At the same time, we have the amazing expertise and dedication of hardworking people in our health, social care and voluntary services – there for us when we can’t so easily help ourselves.
But some aspects of life are less easy for individuals to control and need organisations to collaborate for improvement. Factors such as climate and air quality, transport, good quality housing, healthy town planning, training, jobs and a good income all have a huge effect on our wellbeing.
With this in mind, one of the Leeds Academic Health Partnership’s (LAHP’s) main aims for the Leeds and the Leeds City Region is to attract investment which strengthens and grows the economy. In line with our overarching aim to reduce health inequalities, such growth must be inclusive. In other words, it must benefit everyone – providing good training, skills and jobs for people in all our communities, leaving no one behind.
In 2016, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) selected various regions’ businesses, universities, research and innovation organisations and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to produce science and innovation audits (SIAs). These audits were intended to identify each region’s greatest potential for growth.
As a result, in September 2017, the Government published the Leeds City Region SIA, ‘Opportunities and Growth: Medical Technologies’. It analysed our region’s strengths in healthtech and the challenges we face in growing this sector of our economy.
The Leeds City Region geography very closely aligns with that of West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership. So, what the SIA found and the ambitions it set out, are important for us all.
The SIA shows that health technologies are a major regional strength, offering huge potential for growth in our region and for the UK.
Healthtech is an all-encompassing term that includes medical technologies, such as devices, implants and surgical robots, as well as digital health technology, such as the apps we use on our smartphones. The trend increasingly is to merge these technologies – for example, devices with a supporting app.
Growing and ageing populations, the rise in levels of obesity and chronic illness, an increasingly “digital-savvy” population, and an increasing demand for medical devices are all driving the growth of these technologies.
So, the SIA findings present an exciting opportunity to significantly boost our economy and transform our health and care services. In short, to help three million people across the region live healthier lives.
How well placed is our region to respond to this demand?
We are the largest economic region in the UK outside London and the South East and a vibrant hub for healthtech businesses. In our universities, we have one of the largest concentrations of healthtech research facilities in Europe. And the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership is the third largest of its kind in the country.
But despite these strengths, there are many challenges. The rising demand for healthtech means the types of education, training and skills needed in the health and care workforce are changing, as highlighted in the Government’s recent Topol Review.
Testing of new technologies, which of course is needed to protect people from harm and to ensure that devices are properly regulated before mainstream use, is a complicated and lengthy process. And companies find it difficult to navigate the NHS for testing and trialling, and to ensure that their technologies, once proven, are adopted and spread.
The SIA recommends that, to solve some of these challenges, we needed a dedicated leadership group, bringing together key stakeholders from academia, industry and the health and care sectors to work closely together. So that’s exactly what the LAHP is establishing.
In June, we brought partners together from across the Leeds City Region to sign an agreement to commit to this. They include five universities, the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership, the Association of British Healthtech Industries and the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership.
This autumn, they will meet as a leadership group for the first time. They will work together to understand what health and care challenges might be solved using healthtech. This will attract and encourage more companies to do business in our region, to base themselves here and create jobs for local communities, and importantly, to invest in developing the Healthtech solutions our citizens most need.
We’re delighted to be supporting this new, bold commitment - a ground-breaking collaboration between innovators and the health and care sector. As well as boosting the region’s economy and providing new jobs and skills, we hope it will speed up our work to transform services and, most importantly, help people stay healthier for longer.
Have a good weekend, Jo-Anne
What else has been happening this week?
New cross-sector partnership to boost Leeds City Region Healthtech sector
As above, more than three million citizens across the Leeds City Region are set to benefit as senior leaders from the Healthtech industry, the Regional Enterprise Partnership, the NHS, Local Authorities, and five universities announced a dynamic, new partnership on Monday to accelerate health technology innovation. This bold commitment is the first of its kind in the region. Partners, including the Partnership, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to drive forward new approaches in improving patient and population health and care through better and faster Healthtech innovation. The move also aims to radically speed up the region’s productivity and economic growth in the sector, which is seeing an unprecedented rise across the UK and globally.
This new Partnership agreement will put in place the strong, coordinated leadership and support required to fully capitalise on what is a globally burgeoning market. In 2015, that market was estimated to be worth $371 billion and was forecast to grow to $529 billion by 2022.
Signatories to the MoU include
- The Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI)
- West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership
- Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership
- Leeds Beckett University
- University of Bradford
- University of Huddersfield
- University of Leeds
- University of York
Rob Webster, our Partnership CEO Lead said: “We are delighted to be part of this agreement.” Innovation in health technology has the potential to transform services, improve health outcomes and most importantly save people’s lives. This Memorandum of Understanding is an important step in developing closer partnerships between health technology companies and health and care organisations across our area. It means that people will be able to benefit more quickly and systematically from technologies that can help them. It will also drive inward investment into our region and support our goals for inclusive growth’. You can read more here.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Palliative and End of Life Care Workstream
Watch this film following the August meeting of the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Palliative and End of Life Care Workstream, where Michael Crowther (Chief Executive of Kirkwood Hospice) and Michala James (Senior Transformation Manager, Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group) provide an update on progress made to date.
The Joint Committee Patient and Public Involvement Assurance Group
The purpose of the Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Assurance Group is to assure the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Joint Committee of Clinical Commissioning Groups (‘the Joint Committee’) that authentic patient and public involvement underpins the Joint Committee’s decisions about the programmes in its work plan. The Group help to shape and develop the strategic approach for engaging local people. It reviews patient and public engagement mechanisms, and provide assurance that programme areas of work are informed by stakeholder views in line with our Partnership’s communications and engagement strategy (easy read available here).
This week, members received an update on the work of our Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism Programme engagement work as well as receiving an overview of the ‘Looking out for our neighbours’ campaign evaluation; the development of the Partnership’s Five Year Plan and the 2019/20 communication and engagement strategy.
There was also an update on the work of West Yorkshire and Harrogate Healthy Hearts Project engagement work, led by the Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network. Findings from this include dispelling myths around the use of Statins. There was also an update on how GP’s are identifying people at risk of heart disease and the role of Community Champions. Lay members also received an update on the findings from the Healthwatch engagement report findings. An overview was given on the themes identified to support the work of health champions (people with learning disabilities). The themes include planned care, maternity, preventing ill health and early diagnosis of cancer; staff training will also be available. The Involvement Engagement Framework was shared with Lay members for their comments.
Primary and Community Care Service Programme board
The Primary and Community Care Programme Board met on Tuesday. It was chaired by Carol McKenna (Chief Officer for Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Group and North Kirklees Clinical Commissioning Group) who is the CEO Lead for the Programme. The group received an update on quality markers for unpaid carers, improving population health (health inequalities), as well as the development of our primary care strategy. The 56 Primary Care Networks also known as Homes and Communities and the role of the Clinical Directors were also on the agenda. Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Partnership colleagues also gave an update on the medicines optimisation.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership Area Partnership Group (unions)
Colleagues from the Local Workforce Action Board, Health Education England and the Partnership meet with union representatives from across the area this afternoon. Ian Holmes, Director for the Partnership will update them on the development of the Partnership’s Five Year Plan; the Interim People Plan and the Partnership Board meeting which takes place on Tuesday 3 September 2019.
Funding boost of almost £3.4m for a dedicated Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in West Yorkshire
A funding boost of almost £3.4m has been confirmed by the Home Office which will see the creation of a dedicated Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in West Yorkshire, led and coordinated through the Office of Police & Crime Commissioner. Violence Reduction Units will take a multi-agency approach, bringing together Police, Local Government, Public Health, Voluntary/Third Sector, community leaders and other key partners to tackle violent crime and its underlying causes. They will be responsible for identifying the drivers of serious violence locally and develop a coordinated response to tackle these. Thank you to everyone who got involved from the Partnership. You can find out more here.