Martin has served as the Chair of Health Innovation East Midlands (HIEM) since the organisation was set up in 2013.
He will be concluding his fixed term appointment at the end of March 2024, and in this blog, he reflects on HIEM’s journey and on the unique contribution that all local health innovation networks have made over the past 10 years.
Find out more about Health Innovation East Midlands.
Watch a video about the role here.
Over the past 10 years, I have been privileged to have served as the Independent Chair of the Governance Board for Health Innovation East Midlands, one of the 15 local health innovation networks.
My 10-year term of office culminates at the end of March 2024, and as we launch our search for a new chairthis has given me an opportunity to reflect on our first decade of driving innovation adoption as part of the connected Health Innovation Network – helping health and care systems seek new and better ways of working.
It has certainly been a roller coaster journey for our amazing organisation, with a multitude of opportunities seized and challenges navigated, and I can honestly say that every day has provided me with a positive and rewarding experience.
When I joined the East Midlands in 2013 (one of 15 Academic Health Science Networks, renamed from October 2023 as health innovation networks), the NHS and wider health and care systems were just starting to understand the potential for innovation to be a game changer – enabling efficiencies, transforming outcomes for patients, and leveraging the potential for inward investment for ‘UK PLC’.
Back in 2013, I would never have anticipated the positive impacts that we in the East Midlands – and the other 14 local health innovation networks – would go on to achieve during their first decade.
In the East Midlands alone our work has positively impacted the lives of more than 780,000 people since 2013, and by supporting commercial innovators to develop and scale their technologies we have been instrumental in leveraging more than £84.3m for our region.
We have also connected with more than 1,000 organisations across all sectors involved in healthcare innovation; offering expert supporting services ranging from evaluation and analytics through to innovation scanning (matching proven solutions to local health challenges), quality improvement methodology, workforce transformation and addressing health inequality.
These great impacts are just within the East Midlands: multiplied across our network of 15, our collective contribution is nothing short of outstanding.
As my term of office comes to an end I am reflecting on our organisation’s greatest asset – our staff.
We are a small organisation but have a huge remit, and the outstanding achievements I list above have only been possible through the expertise, enthusiasm and dedication of our East Midlands team.
Our recent staff survey captures the passion of our workforce, with 97% of people feeling trusted and empowered in their jobs.
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, our East Midlands team members worked together to develop and own a set of organisational values that capture our positive culture – a culture that I feel is reflected across our national network:
- We are navigators (we use our insight and expertise to help people with their implementation and transformation journey).
- We are experts (we absorb knowledge and proactively share this).
- We are advocates (we work tirelessly to support people to find the right platforms to bring about positive change).
- We are connectors (we are the only NHS bodies that collaborate across all sectors with a role in health innovation, transformation and improvement).
- We are responders (we seek out and listen to the needs of our stakeholders, then respond with agility and flexibility as a neutral and honest partner).
At the end of March next year, I will pass the baton to our new Chair and so it is appropriate to reflect on what I have I learned over the past 10 years:
- The Covid-19 pandemic has reinforced the absolute imperative to nurture and invest in a strong innovation infrastructure, alongside our strong UK research sector.
- To realise their full potential to make a difference, healthcare organisations and companies need to have an innovation support infrastructure that provides the support, advice and expertise they need – no group of organisations can do this in the way we do. Our collective impacts speak for themselves; the local health innovation networks are a priceless resource for our NHS and wider health and care systems with unrivalled insight into the conditions for innovation to not just be spread, but also to be sustained.
- Involving patients, and addressing health inequality, are critical considerations for innovation to be successfully developed, spread and sustained. At Health Innovation East Midlands we have championed these issues since 2013 – for example we embed equality assessments across our programmes, we help build system capability through access to training, resources and toolkits, and we host the East Midlands Patient and Public Involvement Senate (which has representation on our Governance Board).
- Innovation can be complex – but it can also be very quick and simple. With tailored support and advice, we can help supercharge transformative change, driving innovation further and faster than has been achieved in the history of the NHS.
- It’s OK to fail, but fail fast, learn and move on. Obviously, we are 100% committed to success, but not everything can succeed – thinking it will is unrealistic, and risks a negative culture. Sometimes, promising early stage innovations that we anticipate will fly, never take off. What’s important is to understand the ‘why?’. We should not be afraid of this; our experiences enrich our knowledge bank and help avoid pitfalls in future, so our chances of success are increased, and our risk of failure diminishes over time.
They say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and so I will highlight just one example of the value of the health innovation networks’ collective insight and learning – our Focus ADHD programme, which started in the East Midlands as a local initiative prior to adoption across England via all the local health innovation networks between 2020 and 2023.
The programme was based on a digital technology called QbTest, which measures all three components of ADHD (attention, impulsivity and activity), and when used alongside clinical assessment it speeds up diagnosis and frees up time to enable clinicians to focus on more complex cases.
Launched coinciding with the start of the pandemic, despite the devasting impact of Covid-19 on non-emergency services the programme exceeded all its targets. By June 2023, more than 65,000 young people had benefited, and the objective assessment technology was being used in 69 NHS trusts across 137 sites.
But why was this programme such a success when other, equally important and promising projects may fail to gain traction?
Our learning is captured in a new ‘blueprint’ document launched in December, “Innovation implementation, readiness and resourcing”. This valuable insight is relevant to anyone seeking to develop and successfully implement an innovation or transformation programme within health and care settings.
On a final note, I will take this opportunity to pay tribute to my colleagues across all health innovation networks for their continuing outstanding work.
Having read this blog, you may be interested in applying to become the new Chair of Health Innovation East Midlands.
If successful, I am sure that, like me, you will be energised by working with such a fantastic team at the forefront of health and care innovation – I can promise that you will be in for a stimulating and enjoyable journey, perhaps one of the most enjoyable professional journeys of your life!