Blog

As we publish our Impact Report for 2019-20 our Director of Operations, Kathy Scott, reflects on some our success and achievements from the last 12 months.

The end of 2019-20 seems a long time ago now, and a different world! But, looking back, the AHSN had a really successful year, despite the disruption of a pandemic, which has disturbed everyone’s lives. And, even reflecting on the last six months, which have been so hard in so many ways, I can see individual and collaborative successes that are making a difference for patients and for the NHS in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Our 2019-20 Impact Report has just been published and shows that our close working with the three health and care systems in our region and numerous partners in the NHS and industry has both reduced healthcare costs and provided safer and better care for the people of Yorkshire and the Humber. I could write about how many sites we have spread innovations to, how many devices we’ve issued or how many procedures have been conducted with AHSN supported innovations – but that misses the point about the impact we’ve had. The AHSN exists to transform lives through innovation and this means we need to focus on patient benefit and not just on hitting the targets we are (rightly) given by our local and national commissioners.

Here are just a small handful of our impacts from the report:

• Our ESCAPE-pain programme has helped over 1,000 people in our region to manage their chronic joint pain, transforming their quality of life. Hearing people talk about their increased confidence in getting out an about and their happiness at being in less pain is fantastic and makes this job even more worthwhile!
• The Transfer of Care Around Medicines (TCAM) programme has led to better outcomes for patients by reducing re-admissions to hospital and has, we estimate, saved the NHS in our region over £20m.
• The West Yorkshire and Harrogate Healthy Hearts programme, which aims to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease for thousands of patients and has recently won the HSJ Value award as ‘Best Cardiovascular Care Initiative of the Year’. Due to our work on Hypertension and Cholesterol, as part of Healthy Hearts, we estimate that around 650 people could avoid a major cardiovascular event, including heart attacks and strokes over the next 5-10 years

Along with our national programmes, we have also continued to support trusts to implement proven innovations that have been on the Innovation and Technology Payment programme including:

• Up to the end of March 2020 over 150 women were safely discharged from hospital (and since then another 100 have benefitted) thanks to the implementation of Placental Growth Factor Testing which is used to help diagnose pre-eclampsia. These mothers-to-be have been able to go home and spend more time with their families, instead of being confined to hospital as a precaution in case they have the condition.
• Thanks to our support, 91 patients have avoided the need for an invasive angiogram due to HeartFlow – a non-invasive procedure that creates a personalised 3D model of the coronary arteries.

It’s great to look back at our successes, but I am very conscious that we wouldn’t be able to have this scale of impact without the active collaboration and fantastic support from our partners and stakeholders. Thank you all so much.

These are just a few of our highlights. You can find out more about our work in our Impact Report.