Download PDF - North West Coast Academic Health Science Network

working together
Connecting healthcare, academia and
industry to spread innovation across
Cheshire, Merseyside, South Cumbria
and Lancashire.
Our vision:
• Improving population health by reducing
variation and equalising access to
excellent care
• Promoting a vibrant economy through
investment, innovation
and sustainability of
employment
The North West Coast Academic
Health Science Network (NWC
AHSN) is one of 15 academic
health science networks
in England and its primary
goal is to ensure that the
most advanced treatments,
technologies and medicines
are being made available to
patients.
The Network has six
clinical priorities – cancer,
cardiovascular, child and
maternal health, long-term
conditions, mental health
and stroke. It also holds the
national lead for telehealth/
telecare/telemedicine; infection;
personalised medicine;
neurological conditions and
procurement.
The AHSN is pioneering a new,
innovative way of working.
Our aim is to close the gap
between best practice and
current practice through
collaborating with patients, the
NHS, academia and industry
to co-develop solutions to
joint challenges. We are also
providing strategic advice to
businesses with products
which would work in the NHS.
We are delivering a stepchange in the way the NHS
identifies, develops and adopts
new innovative products and
services. We have a unique
opportunity to align education,
clinical research, informatics,
innovation and healthcare
delivery to improve patient care.
Neurological Health
The Neurological Health Programme
is developing support for evidencebased innovative activities to support
management, monitoring and rehabilitation
of/ from neurological conditions. We aim to
develop a cohesive strategy and structure
to support the development of services for
people with neurological health problems to:
• Promote and support evidence-based innovative
technologies to support people living with
neurological conditions
• Support good practice and adherence to National
Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
guidelines
• With the support of expert groups – horizon scan
for innovation
• Roll-out key Collaboration for Leadership in
Applied Health Research and Care North West
Coast (CLAHRC NWC) outputs
• Sustain and develop engagement with industry
partners
Programme Lead
Dr Julia Reynolds PhD
E: [email protected]
T: 01772 520253
Other Clinical Areas:
Cardiovascular – We are working to
improve health outcomes for patients with
cardiovascular disease through a variety
of ways. Our work to date includes the
development of a heart failure App to
support patient self-management and to
reduce readmissions; support for evidence
into practice tools in primary care; and
support for the implementation of remote
monitoring for diabetes prior to surgery.
Stroke - We are working to reduce the
number of strokes and costs in the NWC
caused by Atrial Fibrillation (AF). Our work
to date includes a successful campaign to
raise public awareness of AF; our roll-out
and evaluation of the AliveCor handheld
ECG devices; and our development of pilot
sites for the MyDiagnostick in care homes
and primary care.
Geographic Area: South Cumbria
Personalised Medicine
We are supporting the expertise and
capabilities in Liverpool around personalised
medicine and genomics, to improve
and personalise treatment and reduce
admissions to hospital due to adverse
reactions to drugs across the NWC region,
We want to spread this good practice to
other AHSN regions and internationally,
developing technologies to support the
wide scale implementation of personalised
medicine in improving the health of the
population.
Programme Lead
Gill Hamblin
E: [email protected]
T: 01772 520265
Other Clinical Areas:
Cancer - We are looking at innovative ways
of engaging with the public to improve their
awareness of early cancer symptoms and to
increase the number of people diagnosed at
an earlier stage with the use of innovative
diagnostic tools and techniques.
Mental Health – We are looking at all
aspects of mental health and its impact on
patients, carers and the wider population.
Our focus is on transition, parity of esteem
and patient safety.
Geographic Area: Merseyside
Patient Safety
The North West Coast Patient Safety
Collaborative is part of a new national
programme launched to improve the
safety of patients and ensure continual
learning sits at the heart of healthcare in
England. The Collaborative will focus on
improving safety and empowering patients,
carers and staff to highlight, challenge and
implement local improvements in patient
care. It has four clinical safety priorities:
• Medicines Optimisation
• Management of Sepsis
• Transition between paediatric and adult care
• Hydration
Programme Lead
Philip Dylak
E: [email protected]
T: 01772 520282
Digital Health
We are responsible for working with the
health and social care system across the
North West Coast to ensure that their
information systems are ‘joined up’ and
accessible for residents and those who need
access to data to make decisions about care.
We support, stimulate and share the
development of new innovative information
technology and information services to
benefit patients, clinicians and the public.
The aim of our work is to empower residents
to be part of planning their own care and
treatment and to enable the health and
social care sectors to better use the data
they hold to support residents in managing
their health and care needs.
Programme Lead
Liz Ashall-Payne
E: [email protected]
T: 01772 520256
Other Clinical Areas:
Long-Term Conditions – We are working
with the NHS, social care and industry to
implement innovative solutions to support
people with long-term conditions to be as
independent and healthy as possible and to
prevent complications and the need to go
into hospital.
Geographic Area: Lancashire
Medicines Optimisation
Our Medicines Optimisation Programme
supports the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
principles of:
• Aiming to understand the patient experience
• Providing an evidence based choice of medicines
• Ensuring medicines use is as safe as possible
• Making medicines optimisation part of routine
practice
We are developing a robust framework for
the identification, evaluation and adoption of
innovation that has the potential to deliver
significant improvements in Medicines
Optimisation.
Infection
We aim to use the expertise and capabilities
in the North West Coast to improve how
infection is managed across the NWC area
and beyond to other AHSN regions and
internationally.
Our focus will be identifying innovations
and service improvements particularly to
meet priority improvement areas, rather
than adoption and implementation. The
AHSN will facilitate collaboration between
industry, academia and the NHS to identify
and develop these innovations and service
improvements, and set-up and operate
research studies.
Programme Lead
Patricia Roberts
E: [email protected]
T: 01772 520254
Maternal & Child Health – We are working
on a number of projects in this area
including developing the brief for the
Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI)
call for innovation in child and maternal
health; working closely with Alder Hey
NHS Foundation Trust and SMEs on the
innovation agenda; and supporting the
uptake of cognitive behavioural therapy
delivered by health visitors for post-natal
depression.
Geographic Area: Cheshire
Procurement & Industry
Engagement
Innovation in procurement lies at the heart
of enabling the adoption of new ideas at
pace and scale into health and social care.
Working with local and regional procurement
teams we will ensure the needs of local
businesses are heard and solutions brokered.
The AHSN is continuously working with
industry to bring forward new technologies
and ways of working to improve care. We
provide a range of support to companies at
various stages of the innovation pathway from early stage ideas and identification of
needs to more developed technologies.
Programme Lead
Bryan Griffiths
E: [email protected]
T: 01772 520266
Geographic Area: Wirral
Academic Programme
We are working with designated leads
in each NWC University to establish an
infrastructure for AHSN / University joint
working. The work will focus on three
themes identified during open discussions
at our Academic Summit events.
Programme Lead
Christopher Kelly
E: [email protected]
T: 01772 520281
The initial aims are to identify:
• How the AHSN should inform and support NWC
universities’ strategies for bidding for Horizon
2020 funding.
• How the AHSN can enhance NWC universities’
engagement with business and enterprise in
areas pertinent to health and medicine.
• How the AHSN can inform and support NWC
universities to develop programmes for
professional development and postgraduate
education around the broad theme of
innovation in health.
working together
Our Leadership Team
Dr Liz Mear
Chief Executive
E: [email protected]
T: 01772 520260
Lisa M Butland
Director of Innovation and Research
E: [email protected]
T: 07900 715261
Commercial Director
If you have an enquiry, want to
attend one of our events, or would
like to work with us and make a
difference to the lives of millions
of local people, please contact us.
E: [email protected]
T: 01772 520262
T: 01772 520250
E: [email protected]
Lorna Green
Professor John Goodacre
Medical Director
E: [email protected]
T: 01772 520258
[email protected]
@nwcahsn
www.nwcahsn.nhs.uk