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Impact Report
2021-2022
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As the innovation arm of the NHS in the East Midlands, we focus on ‘transforming lives through healthcare innovation.’

Part of a connected network of England’s 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs), we receive much of our funding via the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative, a national partnership to drive rapid adoption of innovation across England.

Within the East Midlands, we work with many partners across healthcare, including the NHS, social care and public health, research organisations, patient representatives, the voluntary sector and commercial health innovators.

We aim to identify, test and spread high impact, high quality innovations with the best potential to transform care and stimulate economic growth across the diverse populations we serve.

I am proud of what we have achieved over the past year, and this report covers a snapshot of our work between April 2021and March 2022.

You’ll see examples of East Midlands projects that form part of the national AHSN Pipeline of Innovation, comprising over 1,000 initiatives at all stages, from discovery through to rollout and ultimately to becoming ‘business as usual’.

All innovations we support have the potential to make a radical difference to patient care and delivery, helping our healthcare partners to do things differently, better and more efficiently.

During the year we continued to direct our resources to the COVID-19 pandemic, using innovative technologies and medicines that both respond to immediate care challenges and to support the recovery and reimagining of services.

Our collaboration across sectors means we are well placed to bring system partners together to consider major challenges, and over the year we hosted dozens of events and workshops focusing on themes including elective care, adoption of remote monitoring, digital technology to monitor health deterioration, and safety in care homes.

We operate across all of our Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) and welcome opportunities to discuss how we can continue to support adoption of transformative technologies, pathways and processes that address local challenges – please get in touch to discuss your needs.

Nicole McGlennon

Managing Director, East Midlands AHSN

A word from the Chair

I am proud to welcome you to our 2021-22 Impact Report which brings together the work achieved by our staff and our many NHS, social care, public health, research and industry partners.

The past year has been one of action but also of reflection, as we have moved further into the restoration and recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside the other AHSNs, we have been at the forefront of new ways of working, continually adapting to meet the needs of our East Midlands health and care systems.

Looking ahead, we will develop our work to support the delivery of key national priorities in the greatest areas of need, with a particular focus on tackling health inequalities and supporting the NHS Core20PLUS5 strategy.

Our priorities and innovation programmes will continue to evolve, and over the next 12 months will include cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, mental health, and maternal and neonatal health.

We will also seek to address workforce challenges and will further develop our work around environmental sustainability, contributing to the goal of achieving ‘NHS Net Zero’.

The impacts within this report are underpinned by our organisation’s culture and philosophy. As a team, we have created a set of values that reflect our purpose that sees us as: Navigators, Advocates, Connectors, Experts, Responders and Champions.

Our team members are united by their passion to transform lives through the power of innovation. Our staff have fantastic expertise around innovation, across themes from data-driven insight, to rapid evaluation and patient co- production of transformation.

This means that as well as identifying innovative solutions to local challenges, we can direct our expertise to develop the skills, capability and knowledge of our local system partners, and during the year we launched our Innovation Academy.

I hope you enjoy this year’s report, and please don’t hesitate to get in touch to discuss ways in which we can support you.

Martin Hindle

Independent Chair, East Midlands AHSN

Summary of
our impacts

As the innovation arm for the NHS in the East Midlands, some of our impacts during 2021-22 included:

health and care
sites implementing
and adopting our innovations

innovation projects
/ programmes
supported

Engaged with

delegates as part of our
events and webinars
for health, social care
and industry partners

Provided access to

technologies via
the AHSN national
Innovation Pipeline

Our work to drive innovation adoption also enabled economic growth, and our impacts over the year included:

of investment
leveraged

jobs safeguarded

innovations
supported

jobs created

Academic Health Science Network
Innovation Pipeline

The projects listed in this report illustrate examples of projects at various stages of the Innovation Pipeline from the discovery/testing phase to being rolled out at scale.

As part of our innovation remit, we work closely with the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) and support the delivery of their commission – the AAC plays an important role in removing barriers for innovation ensuring that new treatments and diagnostics reach patients faster.

Go / No Go Decision Gates

discover

Create Value Proposition

Ideation & Creation

develop

Prove Value Proposition

Qualification

Solution & Outline Business Case

Proof of Value

deploy

Deliver Value
Proposition Benefits

Rollout at Scale

sustain

Innovation embedded
when the AHSN steps back

Our programmes

During the year our portfolio of innovations has focused on the programmes listed below. Some of these projects are summarised in this report, including examples that have been sustained, where the innovation has been embedded once our involvement has ended.

Click on each project title to find out more

  • Focus ADHD

    Faster and more cost-effective ADHD diagnosis for children, as part of a national AHSN programme that we are leading

  • Digital outpatient appointment management

    Helping to move scheduling of outpatient appointments to a needs, rather than time, basis.

  • ChatHealth

    Safe and secure health messaging service for young people and new parents.

  • Early intervention eating disorders

    Supporting NHS trusts to implement and evaluate a new model of care to speed up assessment and diagnosis.

  • Blood Pressure Optimisation Programme

    A national programme we are implementing locally to prevent heart attacks, strokes, and vascular dementia in patients with hypertension.

  • Lipid Management and Familial Hypercholesterolaemia

    Improving patient care and outcomes by effectively identifying and treating patients with Hypercholesterolaemia

  • LeDeR

    Managing deterioration in people with a learning disability in supported living settings.

  • Remote monitoring in care homes

    Evidencing how digital platforms might help to detect deterioration of care home residents.

  • Asthma Biologics

    Improving access to innovative medicines and devices that treat severe asthma, selected as ‘Rapid Uptake Products’ (RUPs) by the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative.

Projects that we previously supported that have continued to generate impacts and have been sustained as business as usual, include:

  • Transfers of Care Around Medicines (TCAM)

    Now mainstreamed by the NHS as part of the Discharge Medicines Service. Since our formal role ended, TCAM has gone on to save an estimated £16,488,654 for the region’s health and care system.

  • ESCAPE-pain

    Group rehabilitation programme for people with knee and / or hip osteoarthritis. The project has been sustained with a partnership with Orthopaedic Research (ORUK).

  • PReventing Cerebral Palsy in Pre-Term labour (PReCePT)

    Increasing uptake of antenatal magnesium sulphate (MgSO4) for neuroprotection for unborn babies.15 months on from our programme, take-up has been sustained at 92.1%.

Case Studies

Focus ADHD

ADHD intervention saves the NHS up to £6.5m and supports almost 19,500 young people to receive a faster ADHD diagnosis

The national Focus ADHD programme originated from the East Midlands AHSN in 2017 and was adopted as a national priority for all Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) from 2020.

Find out more

19,500 patients benefitted with 19,500 appointments saved.

Saved the NHS a potential £6.5M

An increase from 46 trusts across 86 sites in March 2021 to a total of 60 trusts across 117 sites in March 2022.

Winner of the 2022 HSJ Partnership Award for the best mental health partnership with the NHS.

Proactive Care @home

Implementation of Proactive Care Frameworks, alongside other targeted interventions, led to a reduction of more than 45,000 patient interactions, helping tackle COVID-19 backlog lists

Around 15 million people in England have a long term condition, and pre COVID-19 approximately 55% of people with long term conditions accounted for half of GP appointments, 64% of all outpatient appointments and over 70% inpatient bed days (Department of Health).

Find out more

Implementation of the frameworks, alongside other targeted interventions, enabled a further reduction of 45,159 patient interactions (September 2021 – March 2022).

29 Primary Care Networks (PCNs) across LLR and Lakeside Healthcare Group committed to being part of the programme, representing 150 GP practices.

Training has been provided to upskill 228 various primary care roles to support the mobilisation of the workforce to deliver Proactive Care @home in LLR.

Early Intervention in Eating Disorders Programme

419 young people benefit from an earlier assessment of an eating disorder thanks to intervention programme

Eating disorders are associated with high levels of disability and deaths. A 2015 report estimated that in the UK eating disorders affect between 600,000-725,000 people, and every year costs the NHS up to £4.6 billion in NHS treatment, £8 billion in lost income and £3.1 billion in carer-related costs.

Find out more

Within the East Midlands: 419 eligible patients (16 to 25-year-olds with an eating disorder) benefitted from earlier assessments as a result of being referred to a FREED service since January 2021.

163 young people benefited from earlier treatments.

100% of eating disorder services received training to implement the FREED model.

Cardiovascular Disease - Lipid Management and Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (FH)

Over 370,000 people in the East Midlands received intensive therapy reducing the risks of heart attacks and strokes

One of our biggest priorities is focused on tackling Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) by the use of innovative medicines to transform the lives of patients in the East Midlands.

Find out more

Over 370,000 people in the East Midlands are receiving intensive therapy and innovative medication to reduce their cholesterol levels, helping avoid heart attacks and strokes.

Over 92,000 patients have been included directly in local CVD projects. More than 80% of those requiring therapy optimisation have achieved a reduction in their cholesterol levels.

108 GP practices are providing therapy optimisation and 5/8 acute NHS trusts are actively participating in the programme across the East Midlands.

Transforming mental health services by involving people with lived experience

Service user representatives help to improve the safety of inpatients in 24 wards across the East Midlands

People with lived experience of in-patient mental health services have been integral to a new national Mental Health Safety Improvement Programme being delivered by the East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative (EMPSC)

Find out more

Worked with all mental health East Midlands trusts and two private providers to reduce the incidence of restrictive practice in inpatient wards. This includes 24 wards spanning 11 different specialities.

Service representatives co-produced a patient leaflet distributed to mental health trusts including 168 mental health wards across 52 trusts and independent providers in England.

An ‘Understanding safety culture’ webinar trained 60 people across 13 organisations.

Our Enabling Services
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:

Supporting the NHS and healthcare system
with healthcare transformation

Innovation Exchange: matching solutions to NHS challenges

The ‘Innovation Exchange’ is how we bridge the gap between industry and the NHS. It is a coordinated way to identify, select and support the adoption of innovations that respond to specific challenges identified by our Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) and healthcare partners.

Find out more

Last year, to respond to health and care challenges within the East Midlands, we ran Innovation Exchanges engaging with over 230 innovators and healthcare professionals, covering the following:

  • Digital technology for people with learning disabilities to support them living in their own homes and manage health deterioration.
  • Supporting the adoption of remote monitoring.
  • Supporting the recovery of elective care and addressing waiting lists.
  • Annual physical health checks for people with severe mental illness.

Evaluating the impact of innovations

In December 2021 we invited applications for the first wave of our new evaluation fund. A great deal of transformation work is underway in Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) across the East Midlands, and our fund aims to help local systems evaluate their projects to ensure their sustainability – and also to support their wider spread and adoption to other ICSs within and beyond the East Midlands.

The evaluation fund will ensure successful innovation can spread at scale, impacting more patients, faster.

Under the first wave of the fund, nine programmes have received up to £30,000 each to evaluate the impact of their innovation.

Find out more

Commercial and clinical innovator support

Since we were established in 2013, we have developed significant knowledge and expertise around how to spread transformative technologies, which we direct to support the adoption of innovations developed by health companies and clinical entrepreneurs.

Find out more

Facilitated £20,143,568 investment in the East Midlands to improve health whilst supporting the NHS, social care and innovators.

500 companies and innovations have been supported by us.

31 Jobs created.

15 Jobs safeguarded.

Involving patients in innovation and transformation

Patient and Public Involvement and leadership in innovation

We are experts at involving patients and members of the public in the co-design and production of innovation and transformation, and all of our programmes are underpinned by service user input.

Find out more

Awarded £1,000 to 15 groups as part of our Public Involvement Fund – supporting innovative community involvement across health and social care. The awards have a particular focus on groups from seldom heard and underserved communities.

Connected 48 patient and citizen representatives with organisations across our region to support transformational health and care improvements.

Connected 120 community members with the health and care system providing valuable feedback on remote monitoring, electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD), and co-production during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also supported community representation in mental health communities of practice – including suicide prevention, sexual safety and restrictive practice.

Co-delivered training to 150 public contributors and staff working in mental health services.

Equality and diversity in health innovation

Our commitment to addressing equality and diversity in health and care innovation

Innovation and transformation must be accessible and responsive to our diverse populations, and all our projects are informed by insight into health inequalities across East Midlands’ communities.

Find out more

12 health inequality summaries produced to help understand and inform how innovation, transformation and service redesign can address inequality.

The equality analysis process is firmly established within our Innovation Pipeline, enabling programme leads to consider innovations through an equality lens.

Our Expert People’s Panel reviewed 18 equality analyses, confirming, and challenging our approach.

Investing in our staff – this has included unconscious bias and gender awareness training, along with workshops on issues such as the risk of designing- in racial bias in service transformation.

East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative (EMPSC)

Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSCs) are hosted by AHSNs with funding from NHS England and NHS Improvement. They deliver a series of National Patient Safety Improvement Programmes which are key elements of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy.

Find out more

Connecting Together care home webinars: designed to help care home staff and managers stay connected across the region. Received interest from 330 care home staff – who can access resources on good practice in improving quality for residents.

We worked with five mental health trusts and two private providers to reduce incidences of restrictive practice in inpatient wards. This includes 24 wards spanning 11 different specialities.

Working alongside the West Midlands PSC and East and West Midlands Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), we ran a pilot engaging four local authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups to support 13 learning disability supported living providers across the Midlands. This trained over 100 carers to use deterioration identification tools and escalation tools, to improve health outcomes of people with learning disabilities living in supported living settings.

Delivered quarterly safety network events with shared learning of improvement work with engagement from five Local Maternity Neonatal Systems. Alongside the West Midlands PSC we facilitated webinars to support the delivery of a whole pathway focusing on the optimisation and stabilisation of the preterm infant, along with an appreciative inquiry workshop to support an improvement culture.

Data driven insight

Data analysis to support transformation and decision making

Our Health Analytics and Informatics team are experts in making data and analytics digestible, accessible, and insightful for health and care organisations.

Find out more

Intensive analytics support provided for the NHS Midlands region as part of the COVID-19 pandemic to monitor the safety and quality of care in the region.

As a result of our support during the pandemic, we have developed and shared a more collaborative approach to sharing data, which enables clinicians, managers and analysts to combine their expertise to better understand the patient experience. This is now available as a national resource, and this work has been nominated for a 2022 NHS Parliamentary Award.

Delivered an additional six cohorts of the innovative and nationally recognised Information Analysts’ Development Programme, two of which were commissioned by an ICS. 72 Analysts from across the country have benefitted from this training.

Provided benefits coaching support to local ICSs to provide practical support and training in identifying and managing benefits from changes – commissioned by NHSX as part of the AHSN Innovation Collaborative.

Looking forward and
future ambitions

We will continue to remain agile and dynamic in our approach to support our region’s health and care systems, as the innovation of the NHS for the East Midlands.

We look forward to introducing our new Horizon Scanning service which means we can integrate our pipeline to find solutions that best fit your challenges. More information is available on our web page.

As evidenced throughout this report, we have significant expertise in what is needed to quickly spread innovations, and make them sustainable.

Moving to a public and population health approach is key to addressing health inequalities, and we will continue to support work across our ICSs to tackle disparity and exclusion to enable better outcomes.

Our work during the past year with the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICS has informed our approach, and over the year ahead we are keen to build collaboration across all East Midlands ICSs to share learning and consider opportunities to work together around these important, shared agendas.

We are keen to share this knowledge and will continue to develop our Innovation Academy, as well as our other support offers, so please contact us to discuss how we can help.

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

Or by following our Twitter

Email us at emahsn@nottingham.ac.uk

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