Rowena Burns has been appointed as Chair of Health Innovation Manchester (HInM) for a further three year-term to continue to drive forward the organisation’s vital work in accelerating research and innovation across Greater Manchester’s health and social care system to benefit local people.

Rowena, who was a founding member of HInM four years ago, has an impressive track record including eight years at the helm of Manchester Science Partnerships (MSP) both as CEO and latterly Chair, and was previously group director of the Manchester Airports Group and chief operating officer of Bruntwood.

Despite having one of the fastest growing economies in the country, people in Greater Manchester die younger than those in other parts of England. To help tackle this, Health Innovation Manchester facilitates world-leading research and cultivates innovations from industry that will improve the health and wellbeing of Greater Manchester’s 2.8 million citizens. This involves connecting partners from the health and social care, life sciences and academic sectors and promoting the city-region internationally.

Rowena is a significant advocate for the health innovation agenda, with a real passion to ensure local people benefit from some of the best and most advanced health, care and treatment the world has to offer. Her continued tenure as Chair will ensure Health Innovation Manchester is well positioned to deliver innovation aligned to GM’s greatest needs, while also influencing national policy in health research, innovation and life sciences.

Commenting on her appointment, Rowena said: “I cannot think of anything more important that improving the health of local citizens as health is vital to us as individuals, it is critically linked to personal and national productivity, and links strongly to our priorities for securing inward investment and the creation of new jobs. True collaboration in health and care is absolutely vital, and I am incredibly proud of how Health Innovation Manchester has evolved over the last four years to foster a multitude of partnerships and deliver innovation into frontline care.

“Some of our most notable work includes joining up records across the 2.8m population via the GM Care Record, developing digital tools to better understand the causes of disease and develop new treatments and pathways, our rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the advances our University partners have made in strengthening genomics and data science so that Greater Manchester can rightly claim to be a leading player in the development of early diagnostics to prevent and treat diseases.”

HInM’s current programmes of work include a world-leading study to test new cholesterol lowering drugs in the community; improving digital GP services across GM; enhancing clinical decision making in secondary care via the GM Care Record and optimising digital and data approaches to improve outcomes in vulnerable communities