NHS North West - Welcome to our region

NHS North West was established in 2006, as the headquarters of the NHS locally.  We cover a wide geographic footprint from Crewe to Carlisle with a population of nearly 7 million, spending nearly £12 billion per annum on healthcare.

We have a unique economy, with a strong R&D base, a range of healthcare providers, from traditional models of NHS provision, some internationally renowned leading-edge NHS provision, innovative social enterprises and a strong independent sector. Alongside this we have a high concentration of small and medium enterprises in the medical technology area and pharmaceutical industries, and a number of national bodies such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Technology Adoption Centre within our region making the NW a hub of health innovation.

The NHS has a multitude of people with good ideas, whether hospital cleaners, clinicians or the chief executives of one of the trusts. We need those creative solutions to make the health services in the northwest the best they can be.  We want to create a culture of permissiveness and a platform to enable these good ideas to be shared and adopted, so as to deliver better health outcomes for our population.

Our vision

Our vision is to create a culture across the Northwest where innovation is expected, supported and celebrated. Innovation is developing new knowledge and/or using existing knowledge in new ways to create value.  Our vision therefore focuses on adding value.  We are creating a regional infrastructure which enables strong partnerships with industry in developing solutions, piloting and evaluating new technology and in supporting NHS generated ideas. Service innovation will be strongly supported in this new structure.

Spread of these new models will be supported through the National Technology Adoption Centre and our Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA).  We are supporting our front line staff with bursaries for adoption of innovation addressing key priorities barriers, releasing significant quality and efficiency.

The NW have led many new initiatives over the last couple of years, including:

• Launching one of the first Academic Health Science Centres, based in Manchester Read More

Examples of our innovation

We ran the Dragon's Lair event on the 14th January 2010, which was headed up by Mike Farrar, Chief Executive of NHS North West.  Eight teams pitched to the ‘dragons’ – a combination of senior NHS managers and business people – with the aim of winning financial backing from the £1.9m regional innovation fund for healthcare.

Some of the 'dragons' making their decision. Pictured from left to right, are Mike Farrar, Joe Rafferty, Denis Gizzi, Steve Ward and Rowena Young.

The winning ideas include a project to relieve pressure on accident and emergency units by diverting less serious cases to a community-based centre, and a way to reduce hospital admissions by patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) through an early warning system alerting them to extreme weather and environmental hazards.

Two others relate to surgical operations. One aims to reduce the number of operations that have to be cancelled on the day by improving assessment of patents’ conditions beforehand, while another will encourage the use of a monitoring device during surgery which has the potential to reduce deaths and complications and cut the amount of time patients spend recovering in hospital afterwards.

Two other projects will benefit stroke victims – providing 24-hour access to medical expertise in the immediate aftermath of a stroke by linking hospitals with a remote network of stroke specialists able to assess patients via a broadband link, and the use of computer technology to provide enhanced speech and language therapy.

One of the winners, Dr Daniel Conway, said: “Taking part in the Dragon’s Lair was exciting. Being challenged by the dragons really made us think about the impact of our proposal and how to make it as effective as possible.”

Having laid strong foundations, we are now seeing many front-line innovations flourish across our region, supported by both our local Innovation Hub, TrusTECH and the National Technology Adoption Centre (NTAC). These include:

• Use of Oesophageal Doppler during surgery to ensure fluid optimisation, which enables patients to recover and be discharged from hospital quicker - Read More

• Improving access to insulin pump therapy to improve management of diabetes - Read More
• Introduction of a new non-invasive technique for assessing the need for surgery due to bladder obstruction - Read More

• New type of catheter using guide wire technology to improve insertion - Read More

• Improving access to cardiac resynchronisation therapy for heart patients - Read More

• Virtual reality simulator for training clinical staff in surgical techniques - Read More

• Breast lymph node assay to improve diagnosis of tumour in suspected breast cancer patients - Read More

• Technologies to reduce health care acquired infection rates - Read More

NW health economies  (Blackpool, Blackburn with Darwen, Bury, Central Lancashire, Knowsley, Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale,  Oldham, North Lancashire, Salford, Sefton , Stockport , Warrington , Western Cheshire, Wirral, ) have started work with the Triple Aim scheme; a programme from the US aiming to produce world-class care by improving efficiency, population health and the patient experience.

Read More

The SHA launches its second innovation annual report in May 2010 to showcase some of the current work across the region and set out our intentions for 2010/11.

Contact us

NHSNW

Our innovation programme is lead by Melanie Ogden, Associate Director,
Melanie.Ogden@northwest.nhs.uk
 

Regional Innovation Hub, TrusTECH www.trustech.co.uk

Richard Deed, Innovation Unit Manager richarddeed@trustech.org.uk

Sarah Simister, Innovation Unit Co-ordinator sarahsimister@trustech.org.uk

Our partners

There are many partnerships established in the NW across health and academic organisations such as Manchester Integrating Medicine and Innovative Technologies (MIMIT), with six NHS organisations and the University of Manchester.

Manchester Academic Health Science Centre (MAHSC)
MAHSC is one of only five DH designated AHSCs in the UK. The designation is a mark of excellence across research, innovation, education and patient service and recognition of the potential to excel in translational medicine. 

The NHS Technology Adoption Centre (NTAC)
NTAC works with the NHS and other partners to identify technologies which improve patient care and clinical outcomes. It also supports and signpost clinicians and managers in navigating the complex processes of bringing in new technology into frontline clinical practice to the benefit of patients and the NHS. The learning from this work is incorporated into NTAC’s range of online

NHS Northwest has recently established an Innovation Partnership Group, which is chaired by Gail Richards, Chief Executive of NHS Oldham, which brings together NHS organisations including clinicians with the NW Development Agency, Manchester University, MIMIT, TrusTECH and the National Technology Adoption Centre.