We have published a report detailing our support for the system during the pandemic, with details about how we can and will help to support health and care partners during reset, restoration, and recovery.

From March, at the beginning of the pandemic, we realigned our resources to offer our full support to the system response. We have worked on a local level in the East Midlands supporting our STPs and ICS, on a regional level collaborating with the West Midlands AHSN working across the NHS Midlands region and nationally collaborating with England’s other 14 AHSNs (the AHSN Network) and national cross sector partners across the NHS, social care, research and industry.

Like all regional AHSNs, we have used our unique position in the innovation space to support the NHS, care sector and industry throughout this challenging time. Case studies of the work undertaken appear in the report and relate to:

• Enabling conditions for safer care, concentrating on managing deterioration in non-acute settings and supporting ICU healthcare staff to provide safe care to patients with tracheostomies
• Optimising approaches to medicines to ease system pressures
• Making sense of data to support the system response
• Connecting the NHS and industry – finding relevant proven solutions
• Gathering first hand experiences and learnings and collaborating with the NHS Midlands region on tangible recommendations for reset, restoration and recovery of services.

Our priority going forward is to continue our support on the ground, but to use our established services, extensive regional cross sector networks and knowledge to contribute strategically to the reset, restoration and recovery of our health and care system – to lock in some of the positive progress that has been made. We will do this by ensuring involvement in local and national conversations, facilitating more opportunities for best practice (including championing PPI and co-production) and working with our stakeholders to establish the most relevant support we can provide.

Pages 18-27 of the report detail the support we can offer to our health and care partners as part of this process.

Read our report titled East Midlands AHSN: Supporting the health and care system to respond to COVID-19