How NHS Wales is using innovation to bounce back after COVID-19

Healthy Thinking asks what the future of the NHS in Wales looks like post-COVID and how one health board is meeting the challenge head on with an innovative solution to the backlog. Linda Prosser and Paul Mears from Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board discuss their plans.

Healthy Thinking talks to Carla Dix, from Delta Wellbeing, about a new technology-enabled community support system in West Wales that's helping people lead independent lives.

AI technologies have the potential to help address important health challenges. Manish Patel of Jiva AI explores how machine learning can transform the screening of major diseases leading to better management of chronic conditions, delivery of health services, and waiting list prioritisation.

Should our medical data be shared widely with doctors, patients, and medical researchers to help benefit ourselves and others? In this podcast we discuss the ethics of Big Data in healthcare with medical lawyer Bleddyn Rees.

The NHS is responsible for over 5% of the UK greenhouse gas emissions. Can innovation help the NHS make a difference in combatting climate change? Kathy Scott from Yorkshire & Humber AHSN explores.

In the first episode of a new series of Healthy Thinking podcasts, the Minister for Health and Social Services shares some of her thinking about the priorities for NHS Wales.

Value-based healthcare involves patients and clinicians working together to make shared, informed decisions to improve patient outcomes. In this episode, Life Sciences Hub Wales’ Deputy Chair of the Board Chris Martin hears from three value-based healthcare experts: Consultant Victoria Bates, who was commissioned by Swansea University to explore VBHC; Emma Clifton-Brown, who is Head of Health and Value at Pfizer UK; and Dafydd Loughran, clinical entrepreneur at Concentric Health.

Covid-19 has ushered in a new era of urgent innovation and with it, a new way of working and collaborating. In this podcast, Life Sciences Hub Wales’ Deputy Chair Chris Martin hears from two people at the heart of this response. Pryderi ap Rhisiart - managing director of the Menai Science Park, M-Sparc on Anglesey - discusses the pioneering work that has been taking place there to tackle the pandemic: “The Covid pandemic meant we had to work together, pulling people from different sectors and businesses together, resulting in new innovation…. And the whole community is driving it forward. It’s been quite something to witness it and I’m proud to be in the middle of it,” said Pryderi. Amongst a number of new products which have been devised there is a device for opening doors using elbows, a police drone and a revolutionary virus-killing mask or snood. The latter was the brainchild of Paul Hope, founder of Virustatic Ltd. The snoods have been scientifically proven in laboratory tests as effective against SARS-CoV-2 at a cellular level. Since March the company has ramped up the production from a weekly run of 40,000 to 400,000 a week. Lucy Hope - Paul’s daughter - is communications director at Virustatic tells us more on the podcast: “Being in Wales and based in M-Sparc...experiencing the willingness to collaborate and innovate together because of the adversity, is like nothing we have ever experienced before.”

In the first of a two-part story, Cari-Anne Quinn tells the story of the Spread and Scale Academy; a groundbreaking, immersive programme geared to give innovators the tools they need to lead adoption at scale across their organisation, region or across Wales and beyond.In this episode, we hear from Joe McCannon and Becky Margiotta, founders of the US-based company, The Billions Institute, who led the Academy. Since 2015, their company has created transformational learning experiences for over 500 foundation and non-profit executives who are leading large-scale change efforts in the social sector. Joe McCannon says, “To do this big change work, you have to be operating at a very high level personally, everything is about relationships.” The Billions Institute is the pioneer of the Model for Unleashing, which encourages innovators to ‘Dig Deep’ into their motivation for change and ‘Dream Big’ about where they’d like to take their project. “It's really breaking beyond the confines of what you can do with the resources you have and flipping it to thinking of what needs to be done and how can we get there?”, says Becky Margiotta, who created and led the 100,000 Homes campaign, that mobilized 186 cities to house 105,000 people off their streets in just four years.More than 50 delegates came to the Life Sciences Hub Wales in Cardiff in 2019, to attend the Spread and Scale Academy. We’ll hear their story in the next episode.

More than 50 delegates from the NHS teams Wales and across the UK came to the Life Sciences Hub Wales in 2019 to attend the inaugural Spread and Scale Academy - a groundbreaking, immersive programme geared to give innovators the tools they need to lead adoption at scale across their organisation, region or across Wales and beyond.In the second of a two-part story, Chief Executive of Life Sciences Hub Wales, Cari-Anne Quinn meets the delegates who were learning how to ‘dig deep’ and ‘think big’ from the leaders of the Academy, Joe McCannon and Becky Margiotta, founders of the US-based company, the Billions Institute.