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19 Jun 2019
The AHSN Network launch impact report 2018/19 and new magazine “The Innovators”
The work of England’s AHSNs is transforming lives through innovation – delivering better health outcomes, improving patient experience and safety, driving down the costs of care and supporting economic growth.
In the last year AHSNs have demonstrated an ability to gain traction rapidly and create impact. This results from each AHSN being part of a national network, while anchored in its regional health and care ecosystem, linking the NHS, industry, charity and voluntary sector, patients and citizens, and academia.
In the first year of its new licence, the AHSN Network has undertaken a first in the NHS: the coordinated and systematic spread of a portfolio of innovation programmes and products on a national level. As a result we are developing a framework of shared approaches and methodologies for spread and adoption.
In 2018/19 the AHSN Network has delivered national programmes for:
- NHS England
- NHS Improvement
- The Office for Life Sciences.
Here are just some of the headline impacts from the latest impact report:
- helped 2,605 companies develop or spread 3,630 innovations
- leveraged £152 million of inward investment
- supported companies in the creation of 691 jobs and safeguarded a further 188 jobs
- helped to prevent an estimated 13 cases of cerebral palsy in very premature babies through our PReCePT programme, saving around £10 million in lifetime health and social care costs
- driven a 552% increase in patients benefiting from our emergency laparotomy programme
- reached 4,309 people with osteoarthritis with our ESCAPE-pain rehabilitation programme
- supported 32,758 patients who need extra help with prescribed medicines when they leave hospital.
Dr Séamus O’Neill, Chair of the AHSN Network. said: “Due to our unique relationship with all the agents and beneficiaries of transformative innovation, our three national commissions are mutually reinforcing each other, each stronger and more effective because of the mandate we have from our regions coupled with our commitment to collaborate nationally.”
Meet the Innovators
The AHSN Network has launched its new magazine, The Innovators.
Exploring different perspectives from across the NHS, government, industry, academia, patients and the AHSNs themselves, The Innovators draws together insights and learning on how healthcare innovation is transforming lives.
In his foreword to the magazine, Ian Dodge, NHS National Director for Strategy and Innovation, said: “Since 2013, England’s 15 AHSNs have been tasked with spreading healthcare innovation across the NHS at pace and scale. This has stepped up a gear in the last year as the AHSN Network embraces a challenge unheard of anywhere else in the world — to drive a whole portfolio of national adoption and spread programmes in collaboration with every regional health and care system in the country.
“The complexity of this challenge should not be underestimated, which is why I am delighted to introduce this latest AHSN Network publication, detailing some of the impacts already beginning to emerge.
“Within the last year alone, the AHSNs supported over 2,500 companies with over 3,000 healthcare innovations. Not only does this benefit patients and our health system, but it also supports the economic growth of the country, particularly through the creation of nearly 700 jobs and an impressive £152 million investment leveraged into AHSN geographies.”
Contents include:
- Interview with Dr Sam Roberts, NHS Director of Innovation and Life Sciences and Chief Executive of the expanded Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC)
- Learning from experience: feature on the AHSNs’ national programmes – how do we accelerate the spread of proven innovation?
- Supporting economic growth: why health and wealth go hand in hand
- Patient Safety Collaboratives: strengthening local connections for national impact
- Magic bullet or golden thread? Kate Hall (Director of Capability Development at UCLPartners and Director of Implementation and Adoption at West Midlands AHSN) shares the good news and the not-so-good news about adoption and spread of innovation.
- ‘Meet the Innovator’ profiles: seven healthcare solutions and the people who got these into the NHS.