Impact Report 2026

Powering the Future of Health and Care Innovation sets out Health Innovation North West Coast’s direction for 2026–2030. We aim to unlock the full potential of innovation to improve lives, reduce inequalities, strengthen health and care systems, and support inclusive economic growth across the North West Coast.

Our vision is of a region that is recognised for leading a dynamic innovation economy, transforming the lives of our communities and workforce.

Our mission is to connect the innovation landscape to deliver measurable improvements in health outcomes an create sustainable value across the UK and beyond.

The strategy responds to urgent and persistent regional challenges. They include:

• Stark health inequalities
• Workforce shortages and productivity challenges
• Rising demand and complexity of health conditions
• The implementation challenge – scale, not invention
• Fragmented pathways limit effective responses

These challenges cannot be addressed through traditional service models alone. Instead, the region must accelerate the shift from treatment to prevention, from hospital to community, and from analogue to digital care.

Health Innovation North West Coast is a key connector between communities, the NHS, academia, industry, local government and care systems.

The opportunity presented by health innovation is enormous. The accelerated adoption of high-impact innovation could deliver up to £278bn annually through improved population health, workforce productivity and inward investment. This requires collaboration across industry, the NHS, academia and other partners.

Our ambitions:

1. Adopt and spread proven solutions: accelerate uptake of high-quality, evidence-based innovations aligned to population health needs.
2. Power the pipeline of new ideas: convene partners to co-develop, test and refine innovations from early-stage ideas through to adoption.
3. Build readiness for change: strengthen system culture, capability and confidence to support new models of care.
4. Shape the future of health and care: use regional insight to influence national priorities and coordinate innovation activity at scale.
5. Catalyse growth: mobilise expertise in advanced technologies, robotics, pharmaceuticals and biosciences to improve care and drive economic prosperity.

Our assets: data assets, Living Labs and test beds, integrated partnerships across public and private sectors, a culture of innovation, patient and public involvement, read-world evaluation, complex transformation and system navigation

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