17 Dec 2024
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20 Dec 2024
Reflecting on 2024: Innovations, Impact, and Insights from Health Innovation Manchester
In this blog, Laura Rooney, Director of Strategy at Health Innovation Manchester (HInM) reflects on 2024 and shares the thoughts and comments from other HInM staff members.
As we approach the end of another year, it’s a fitting moment to pause and reflect on the achievements, challenges, and learnings that have help to shaped Health Innovation Manchester over the past twelve months. 2024 has been a transformative year as we launched our latest 3-year strategy, ‘Innovation with Impact’, and continue to harness innovation to address some of the most pressing health and care challenges facing the communities of Greater Manchester.
At the core of our journey this year has been the collective effort of our talented and dedicated team. In this special end-of-year review, we’ve invited some of our team to share their personal highlights and insights. These reflections offer a glimpse into the progress we’ve made and the people who have driven it, as we work towards the vision for HInM that continues to guide our work:
To be world leading in improving the lives of local people, transforming care, and boosting the economy through innovation.
I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved together and look forward to building on this momentum in the year ahead. On behalf of everyone at Health Innovation Manchester, thank you for your continued support, partnership, and dedication and wishing you a very healthy and happy Christmas.
Find out what working at Health Innovation Manchester means to our staff members in this short video!
Claire Macconnell, Director of Operations: “Joining in January 2024, I have enjoyed getting to know how the organisation operates and working with all the amazing talent at HInM. Everyone has been so welcoming for which I am very grateful.
In 2025, I am excited to drive transformative impact, supporting the advancement of strategic programmes that address healthcare challenges, leveraging innovation to improve lives of local people and transform care. Collaborating with our teams, I aim to enhance delivery, ensuring alignment with our strategic objectives and develop our organisation fostering a culture of excellence and innovation, enabling our teams to deliver sustainable improvements across Greater Manchester and beyond.”
Sameer Kothari, Chief Commercial Officer: “By engaging with a diverse range of industry partners, our teams have unlocked new opportunities for growth and innovation. Initiatives like the MISSION project, a collaborative working project between Chiesi Limited and Health Innovation Manchester to improve respiratory care in Greater Manchester, are bringing cutting-edge solutions to Greater Manchester, positioning us as a leader in health innovation while fostering economic development in the region.”
Jay Hamilton, Programme Director of Industry & Commercial Partnerships: “Whilst we celebrate this year’s achievements, we are also laying the groundwork for the future. Initiatives like the SURMOUNT-REAL UK study in which Greater Manchester plans to partner with industry to deepen understanding of a weight loss medication are setting us up for even greater global impact, ensuring we remain at the forefront of healthcare & research innovation.”
Nicky Timmis, Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement Manager: “Addressing health inequalities remains a cornerstone of our mission at Health Innovation Manchester. The Health Innovation Accelerator has created opportunities for us engage with communities and increase our understanding of the barriers and enablers to health care, early detection, and screening amongst those in the poorest health across GM.
From a personal perspective this project has given me the chance to get out from behind my desk and go into communities – where I am most comfortable -and to learn from the people we are all here to serve”
Paula Bennett, Chief Nurse & Clinical Director: “We have refined how we work within our innovation programmes and further developed the clinical insight and engagement support we can offer. We are active in, and across GM, to raise awareness of the GMCR with front-line clinical teams including launching several 1st of type integrated care planning projects.
We have worked with GM clinicians, expert patients and Industry partners to understand the burden of chronic kidney disease on people, their families and NHS staff and have supported a range of Health Innovation Accelerator programmes providing detailed pathway insights for cardiovascular and respiratory disease. We are all looking forward to challenges in 2025 and our unique contribution to improving the lives of local people and transforming care.”
Gareth Thomas, Digital Innovation Director: “At Health Innovation Manchester, one of our missions is to improve patient care by enhancing digital services for healthcare professionals and patients, focusing on four main programmes: the GM Care Record, GM Secure Data Environment, Digital First Primary Care and Social Care Record Digitisation.
This year, the GM Care Record was enhanced with integrated care planning and a patient-facing app and is now used by 23k+ frontline users accessing over 300k patient records each month
The GM Secure Data Environment is live with pilot ‘alpha’ projects ahead of an anticipated full ‘beta’ launch in 2025. We are immensely proud of these achievements, which reflect our ongoing commitment to supporting healthcare professionals and improving patient experiences.
Cara Afzal, Programme Director for Digital & Data: “My key highlights from the Digital Transformation Team include advancements in digital integrated care planning, increased usage of the GMCR, the success of the Community Pharmacy Programme, the expansion of the Digital First Primary Care (DFPC) initiative with impact data capture, and the incredible work being done to establish a GM Secure Data Environment (SDE) service.
It’s been just over a year since I returned to HInM, and it’s been wonderful to see the progress we’ve made, including the launch of My GM Care, which provides patients with information about their care. Also, witnessing the development and maturity of a matrix professional service has been inspiring, offering staff greater opportunities to grow and contribute across the organisation.
Winning the HSJ Patient Safety award for ‘Improving Medicines Safety’, along with two HTN award wins for ‘Best use of digital for ICSs’ and ‘Best use of digital for social care’ within a month was a standout moment in a year full of achievements – and there’s so much more to do. I couldn’t be prouder of the team and all we’ve accomplished together!”
Jonathan Massey, Programme Director for Academia said: “It has been great this year to see so many projects that started out as cutting-edge research in Greater Manchester being deployed at pace and scale in our health and care system by Health Innovation Manchester.
This ranges from the fantastic work within the Health Innovation Accelerator, such as T-MACS, to Digital and Data projects, such as SMASH, and pharmacogenomics projects like PALOH . Many of these have received prestigious national accolades, such as the HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2024: Improving Medicines Safety Award for SMASH, and the Times Higher Education Research Project of the Year 2024 for PALOH.
I have had the pleasure of being Programme Director for PALOH, a genetic point of care test to prevent a commonly prescribed antibiotic causing profound deafness in babies in neonatal intensive care. This year marked the completion of the rollout of the test across all neonatal sites in Greater Manchester – this success has now led to a further £1.5m National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) award to rollout the test across more sites in the UK, including devolved systems in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Only last week we heard about more positive test result; eleven babies have now been saved from hearing loss across Greater Manchester through this work.”
Oliver Barnes, Programme Director for Adoption & Spread: “This year has been a testament to the power of collaboration and innovation. Through the dedication of our teams and partners, we have made significant strides in improving healthcare delivery across Greater Manchester.
One standout success has been our work on a first of its kind population health management approach to deliver a new pathway for treatment of CVD inclusive of rapid and diverse access to novel therapies through primary care to reduce cholesterol in high-risk groups. The adoption and spread of this innovation has set new benchmarks for patient outcomes and efficiency whilst also addressing health inequalities.”