Awards for North West digital health pioneers

Ten North West health and care organisations have been presented with awards sponsored by the Innovation Agency. 

They were among winners at the North West Skills Development Network’s Informatics Awards, part of the Connect 2019 conference showcasing pioneering work in digital health. 

The winners include NHS clinical commissioning groups, NHS trusts and care providers from across the region. Winning projects included a digital patient portal for maternity services, a paper-free blood transfusion administration process, and virtual appointments with end-of-life care specialists. 

Health Innovation North West Coast’s Director of Digital Alan Davies said: “These awards celebrate both innovation and collaboration in health and care systems in our region. England’s North West has a vibrant, sharing digital learning and skills development culture embedding the best home grown and procured digital enabling solutions, and the examples we’ve seen at these awards demonstrate the impact that pioneering solutions are having on the quality of care for our patients and the efficiency of our health services. I congratulate all our finalists, each of whom are exemplars of best practice in their fields.”

The winners were:

Best Improvement in Patient Safety Award – ‘Paperless transfusion instruction and delivery’, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust

Clinician in Informatics – Julie Haigh, North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust

Collaboration Award – ‘High intensity user dashboard’, Wirral Health and Care Commissioning, Wirral Community Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust and Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Apprentice of the Year – Oluchi Ogbonna, NHS Liverpool CCG

Innovation Award – ‘Remote end-of-life care’, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Trinity Hospice

Team of the Year Award – Clinical Coding Team, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust

Connect 2019 welcomed speakers from North West NHS organisations, showcasing the excellent projects being undertaken in the region, as well as keynote speakers Dr Paul Rice PhD, Director of Digital Transformation NHSDE/NHSI North East and Yorkshire; Dr Victoria Betton, Managing Director mHabitat; Patrick Mitchell, Director of Innovation and Transformation Health Education England; and John Volanthen, Specialist Cave Diver.

Held at the Grand Hotel Blackpool, this year’s conference was opened by John Glover, CIO Bay Health and Care Partners and Chair of the ISD Strategy Group, and welcomed 270 delegates. Main sponsors for 2019 were Allscripts and the System C and Graphnet Care Alliance.

The Informatics Awards were sponsored by: Estio Training, Fed-IP, Hartree Centre (Science and Technology Facilities Council), Health Education England, the Innovation Agency, The Utilisation Management Unit and Unsung Hero Awards.

Photo: winners of the Innovation Award Sarah Roberts of Trinity Hospice and Helena Palin of Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with the Innovation Agency's Alan Davies