Martin Hindle, Independent Chair of the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network talks about the latest public health data.

Recently, Public Health England (PHE) released the health profiles for 2016. It is an excellent resource which holds a huge amount of valuable health and socioeconomic statistics for England. As the Independent Chair of EMAHSN I was particularly drawn to the granular nature of information for the East Midlands region and the common health trends within the data.

The East Midlands region is extremely diverse; cities such as Nottingham and Derby are amongst the 20% most deprived areas in England. With life expectancy for both men and women being lower than the England average, it is paramount to ensure we continue look to at innovative services to reduce health inequalities.

The health profiles also highlight the overwhelming impact of obesity on our children and young people; over half of the East Midlands region has children in year 6 classified as obese and a considerable amount of alcohol specific hospital stays relate to young people.

In addition to diet and alcohol, young people have a complex range of concerns, information and support needs, and engaging these groups can be difficult; this is why EMAHSN is supporting ChatHealth, a text messaging service that puts pupils in touch with school nurses. It is a great example of frontline NHS innovation - developed by Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, with our support it has rapidly spread nationally and is now reaching 900,000 teenagers.

The health profiles data clearly show the demand for services to support young people. ChatHealth has helped to reach an audience who may not normally engage with health services or seek advice; it also helps tackle health issues earlier, rather than later in life. ChatHealth plans to extend its reach beyond schools to include health visiting teams, mental health and other health services.

Diabetes continues to be a major health concern across the regions with an estimated 26,432 people with reported diabetes in Leicester alone. However, in areas such as Northampton and Nottingham diabetes seems to be less prominent, which demonstrates how diverse the East Midlands is. Trying to address these differences and reduce variation of service through spreading and adopting innovations at pace and scale is one of the challenges that England’s 15 Academic Health Science Networks are collaborating to address nationally.

Diabetes has become a national pandemic with 4.9 million people in the UK projected to develop diabetes by 2035, with type 2 diabetes driven by the increasing rates of obesity. In response to the growing numbers in diabetes in 2015 NHS England, Public Health England and Diabetes UK announced a call for bids from organisations to deliver the Healthier You: NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme. It seeks to help those most at risk of type 2 diabetes through interventions to improve diet, lose weight and increase physical activity.

The Leicester Diabetes Centre (LDC), which has an international reputation for diabetes expertise, wanted to bid to become one of the national providers of this important initiative, but first needed to identify a commercial partner. With our support and expertise LDC has established a successful partnership with a company called Ingeus and within just a few months this collaboration has already secured 3 contracts including East Midlands, Leeds and South East to deliver the programme.

I am pleased that we have been able to support the Leicester Diabetes Centre to further build their national reputation for excellence and look forward to the outcomes of this programme and the impacts it will make. I am also delighted that the LDC has been recently commended at the Quality in Care Programme awards for their work in ‘Preventing diabetes by turning research into practice.’ I wish them great continued success.

On a positive note looking at our health profiles data, I want to highlight the rates of cardiovascular disease and early death from cancer in areas such as Rutland and Leicester, which are better than the national average.

The data from each of the profiles reinforces our commitment to ensure that the East Midlands AHSN is committed to collaborating and sharing resources, developing joint projects to avoid duplication, and to make sure we serve the population of the East Midlands effectively. Our support and work with system wide transformation programmes, especially Vanguards and the Sustainability and Transformation Plan areas are examples of this.

In relation to the health profile data for 2016 and some of the key issues we are tackling, learn more about our projects to reduce liver disease, obesity and mental health.

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