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Impact Report
2020-2021
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Hear from Nicole

As one of England’s 15 Academic Health Science Networks, our primary focus is centred on “Transforming lives through innovation.”

We operate as the innovation arm of the NHS in the East Midlands – connecting and collaborating with health and care, the public, industry and research to discover, test and spread the best in health innovation.

We work to transform patient care, empower staff, strengthen the health and care system, and stimulate economic growth, across all the diverse communities that make up our region.

During 2020-2021, we achieved this against the backdrop of a pandemic that put unprecedented demand on our health and care services and workforce. The EMAHSN pivoted to help our local health systems respond, whilst providing expertise and knowledge to support discussions around the recovery and restoration of services.

As you will read in this report, this led to opportunities for innovation, particularly around digital technology and remote monitoring in hospitals, care homes and support for people in their own homes – with the ultimate aims of keeping patients and our workforce as safe as possible.

A number of beneficial changes have emerged through the use of these innovative technologies, and we are continuing to work with our NHS region and partners across sectors to lock these in, maximising the potential for them to continue to improve the lives of patients and care recipients around the diverse communities we serve.

I am immensely proud of how the EMAHSN responded over the past 12 months to support care givers in the region, it was a privilege to be able to add value to the wider health and care system. I hope you enjoy our report.

We are keen to discuss how our innovation programmes and expertise can support your transformation work - please do get in touch.

Nicole McGlennon

Managing Director, East Midlands AHSN

Hear from Martin

A word from the Chair

It is a pleasure to be able to introduce our Impact Report for 2020 –2021 and to bring together the incredible work of our staff and the wider NHS and social care system during what has been a challenging year for so many.

Looking forward, we have set ourselves six corporate objectives for 2021- 2023 that together emphasise the unique role we have within the health and social care system to discover, test, implement and evaluate new ways of delivering health and social care that will improve the lives of our patients, care recipients and workforce.

As we move onwards, EMAHSN will work closely with our local health and social care services to enable them to continue to see and treat the people they need to, in a safe manner for patients, users and staff. We have a key role to play in this.

Our work over the year ahead will explore how our health systems can unlock the potential for innovations and technologies - both ‘home grown’ within the East Midlands and ‘imported’ from other AHSN areas – to transform lives.

This includes enabling remote monitoring and consultation, reducing unnecessary hospital admissions, responding to patient safety issues, addressing the needs of vulnerable patients including those with a range of Long Term Conditions, and ensuring efficient and safe prescribing practice.

We will continue to collaborate closely with our AHSN colleagues (as part of the AHSN Network), and with our many partners across sectors including a partnership with the NIHR ARC East Midlands, to develop new innovation programmes

The months ahead will be key to the future of health and care in our region as we move towards greater integration of services; we look forward to working with our Integrated Care Systems to explore how innovation can help address the needs of our local populations.

Martin Hindle

Independent Chair, East Midlands AHSN

Support by EMAHSN
during COVID-19

March

Reach out to East Midlands health and care leaders to offer expertise and support
East and West Midlands AHSNs set up regular joint meetings to maximise support across Midlands region
Patient Safety Collaborative start delivering deterioration and tracheostomy workstreams
EMAHSN support and advice starts for Midlands Digital Cell

April

Share rapid insights with ICUs on critical care, collated from Wuhan
Support NHSX with industry shortlisting for remote monitoring innovations
Start support for NHSX patient-facing communications campaigns
Contribute to AHSN compendium of 350 proven COVID specific innovations to support system response
Start providing data and analytics support to the Midlands Safety and Quality Cell

May

eRD support launched for GPs and pharmacists across the Midlands
East Midlands PPI Senate share pandemic patient experiences
With the AHSN Network & RCGP, launch a series of webinars for GPs on COVID-related priorities

June

Deliver workshop for NHS Midlands colleagues on digital and Al
East Midlands Patient Safety Leads Network come together share learnings
Host regional respiratory leads meeting to facilitate shared learning for next steps

July

EMAHSN hosts the AHSN roundtable to bring together industry voices with health and care leaders
Nicole McGlennon chairs AHSN roundtable to bring together industry voices with health and care leaders
AHSNs join forces with NHS England, NHS Confederation and Health Foundation on recovery and restoration discussions - including the ‘NHSReset’ and ‘Beneficial Changes’ campaigns
Discussions with other AHSNs and NHS England on evolving work to take on recovery and restoration priorities

August

Following cross-region STP workshops, with West Midlands AHSN we identify six month ‘quick wins’ for key areas: medicines optimisation, patient safety, digital technology; analytics and workforce

September

East and West Midlands AHSNs work alongside regional leaders to co-author NHS Midlands’ “Learning from COVID” review, highlighting over 40 recommendations

November

Launch of a trailblazing programme to prioritise support for patients with Long Term Conditions

December

Results show a 78% increase during the pandemic in patients being able to collect prescriptions electronically, rather than visiting a GP practice

January 2021

Launch of the East Midlands Digital Health Accelerator – supporting companies to spread digital innovations
Commenced production of a weekly COVID Vaccination Peer Support Bulletin issued by the NHS Midlands Clinical Reference Group to clinical leads, sharing COVID vaccination information, learning and best practice (in partnership with WMAHSN)

February 2021

Achieved 100% of CCGs in the East Midlands roll out of the Covid Oximetry @Home initiative that supports patients to be safely treated at home

April 2021

100% of East Midlands acute trusts taking part in the Covid Virtual Wards initiatives, allowing people to stay out of hospital whilst flagging if their condition worsens

Enabling Services and
The Impacts

As well as our innovation programmes, we also have a number of enabling services to support our East Midlands ICSs, individual health and care organisations and healthcare companies and innovators. These include:

Patient and Public Involvement (PPI)

Our Patient and Public Involvement team offer strategic and operational advice, expertise and support to ensure patients and the public are listened to and included in health service innovation and transformation.

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25 Patient Leaders trained to support the Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System to maximise the impact they can have on leading transformational change.

50 Patient Leaders are part of an active and growing online Patient Leaders Platform where connections, sharing and collaborations support local involvement opportunities.

135 members part of a growing Patient Leaders database providing opportunities for us to connect experienced patients, carers and service users with local healthcare systems.

4 new PPI Senate members recruited to join the East Midlands PPI Senate who provide independent advice and expertise on effective public involvement across our region.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)

We believe innovations and transformational health care needs to be accessible and benefit all communities. We are committed to nurturing an organisation where diversity and inclusion inform ideas, creativity, innovations and equality. Our commitment to national AHSN Diversity Pledges will help drive local progress for our staff, our innovations and ultimately better experience and outcomes for the diverse populations we serve.

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Our Equality Analysis is firmly established in our Innovation Pipeline process enabling opportunities to mitigate issues that may wider inequalities.

We have established our Expert Peoples Panel made up of people from Protected Characteristics, who provide external scrutiny, confirm and challenge and advice to our Equality Analysis process.

All staff have received initial Unconscious Bias training.

We have produced 12 Health Inequality Fact sheets highlighting key inequality facts for our region to increase awareness.

Health Analytics

Our Health Analytics and Informatics team offer support such as making sense of health and care data to inform service improvements; providing advice, analysis and developing tools for NHS and other organisations. We also provide training for healthcare analysts.

Provided intensive analytical support to the NHS England & Improvement regional Safety Surveillance cell - producing and presenting hundreds of charts every week and supporting quality and safety surveillance during the pandemic.

Specialist analytics support and advice for 9 local and regional organisations and more than 18 projects.

Organised four cohorts of the Information Analysts’ Development Programme to be delivered over 2021/22, enabling 48 Analysts working in health and care across the region to benefit from this 11-day programme.

Supporting innovators and signposting to high impact technologies

We help health companies and NHS and academic entrepreneurs who have a great solution they want to develop and spread.

We link with our health and care partners to understand their challenges so we can signpost them to proven innovations and technologies, identified from other AHSN areas or via national schemes such as the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC).

Facilitated over £15m investment in the East Midlands to improve health and support NHS, social care and industry innovators.

419 companies have been supported by us with 452 innovations.

Medicine Pathways and Safety

Our teams work across primary and secondary care to provide support and advice and to share innovations around safe use of medicines and prescribing practice. Programme some highlights from 2020-21 include:

The Frailty MDT Polypharmacy Project

A review of care records for 700 patients who received care at Nottingham University Hospitals, identified that:

  • Patients who were on the specialist frailty pathway had 38% fewer new medicines prescribed.

  • Persistence of medication changes in primary care after three months was 13% higher in the specialist frailty pathway.

The Paracetamol supply in Care Homes pilot project

evaluated the impact of a new supply pathway and medicines policy for paracetamol in three nursing homes and one care home in Lincolnshire. It reported:

  • A reduction of over 91,000 paracetamol tablets administered (107,064 tablets to 15,576).

  • The £38,600 spend was reduced to £26.

  • Savings of £7,644 per care home. 

Case Studies

Electronic Repeat Dispensing (erd)

Over 1,000 health and care professionals supported to encourage adoption of eRD.

Find out more

As part of a joint campaign with partners across the Midlands, we engaged with over 1,000 Midlands health and care professionals to encourage the adoption of eRD.

The programme resulted in a 78% increase in East Midlands’ patients receiving their prescriptions via eRD.

Between February and July 2020 there was an increase of 107,033 eRD items, equating to a 44% increase compared to a national increase of 17%, over the same period.

Focus ADHD

Supporting almost 10,000 children across England to have an objective ADHD assessment.

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Nearly 10,000 children across England have an objective assessment for ADHD.

46 trusts and 86 sites providing objective assessments within their ADHD pathway.

Over 42,000 tests have been undertaken across England since our work began in the East Midlands.

COVID Oximetry @home

Life saving scheme rolled out across the East Midlands allows patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19. To monitor signs of deterioration from home.

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100% of acute trusts in the East Midlands have access to a COVID virtual ward.

Our success at embedding and sustaining this programme during 2020-21 means that our patient safety team has been able to wind down its involvement and move its expertise and resources to support other safety priorities.

Digital outpatient appointment management

A pioneering approach to digital outpatient follow-ups

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Improves patient’s experiences – 93% of patients who completed a follow up questionnaire didn’t require a face to face appointment.

High digital patient interaction – 78% of patients completed the questionnaire when requested.

Transfers of Care Around Medicine (TCAM)

Over 12,000 at-risk patients received additional support with their medications when leaving hospital

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7,685 patients were supported by community pharmacies with their medicines after discharge from hospital - 71% increase from last year.

Estimated saving of £16,488,654 for the region’s health and care system from reduced readmissions to hospital.

TCAM was identified as a response programme for COVID-19, to prevent avoidable re-admissions based on medication errors, to help with bed capacity within trusts during the pandemic.

Proactive care frameworks

Helping primary care to deliver high quality, proactive, routine care for patients with long term conditions

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29 Primary Care Networks committed to be part of the programme during 2021-2022.

6 frameworks to help primary care to restore services that have been disrupted by the covid-19 response.

Early Intervention Eating Disorders

Waiting times reduced by 32% for assessment and 41% for treatment – speeding up diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders

Find out more

Reduced waiting times by 32% for assessment and 41% for treatment.

Reduced the proportion of patients who needed day patient or inpatient care by 35%.

Helped 59% of anorexia nervosa patients reach a healthy weight within 12 months of starting treatment, compared to 17% of non-FREED treatment-as-usual patients.

Remote monitoring in care homes

Using remote monitoring to help care home professionals to detect, manage and escalate when a resident’s health is worsening.

Find out more

Approximately 214 residents will be supported from May 2021 across 6 care homes.

3 Care Homes in North East Derbyshire are acting as early adopters of the pilot with other interested parties following.

Our Programmes

England’s 15 AHSNs are the innovation arm of the NHS. In the East Midlands we work locally with our STPs and ICS to respond to local health and care priorities, whilst also operating as a national network of 15 (the AHSN Network). This local and national focus means we can take what works well locally, and quickly spread it across large populations

Click on each project title to find out more

Looking forward
and future ambitions

To ensure that we maximise the potential for rapid innovation adoption across England, the 15 AHSNs are collaborating to develop a national pipeline of innovation. This will identify projects at all stages (from discovery through to adoption) to enable us to better import and export programmes and technologies between AHSNs that meet the needs of our local ICSs. Working as a national network, EMAHSN is also taking the lead across the AHSNs for workforce innovation. We are looking forward to contributing to this agenda, to supporting and empowering health and care staff to continue to transform services for patients and to support their own wellbeing. We will continue to remain agile in the way we work so that we can use our resource and expertise to support ICSs and the move to a place-based, integrated care approach to population health. We will continue to develop our support services to meet the needs of our many local partners.

East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative

East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative is the regional delivery arm for key elements of the national NHS patient safety plan. The team is part of EMAHSN. This year, they have a new commission of work from NHS England and NHS Improvement and will support five national programmes to make improvements to enable safer systems of care:

  • Managing deterioration
  • Maternity and neonatal
  • Adoption and spread of effective and safe evidence based interventions
  • Medicines safety
  • Mental health

The team has also taken on a commission from NHS England and NHS Improvement LeDeR team for 2021/22 working with local authorities and people with a learning disability to improve management of physical deterioration in the event of people becoming unwell.

Stay up to date

If you want to keep up to date with our progress in these areas, you can keep in touch in the following ways.

By signing up to our newsletters

By visiting the news pages of our website

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