News and blogs

Pharmacies in Cheshire and Merseyside are being notified by their local hospital when a patient is discharged who might need help understanding changes to their medicines following their stay. 

The Innovation Agency is urging people to know their heart rhythm during World Heart Week and will be testing pulses at Asda in Everton tomorrow.

Arrhythmia (an irregular heart rhythm disorder) is the number one killer in the UK and causes up to 100,000 sudden cardiac deaths each year, killing more people than breast cancer, lung cancer and Aids combined.

A 3D heart modelling service to rapidly diagnose coronary disease and an advanced blood test which can cut the time it takes to rule out a heart attack by 75 per cent are among a raft of health innovations being introduced for patients.

The Innovation Agency and fellow Academic Health Science Networks are responsible for accelerating the uptake of the technologies across England – with the Innovation Agency focussing on Cheshire, Merseyside, Lancashire and South Cumbria.

A University of Liverpool-led partnership has been awarded £575,000 of funding from the Office for Students for a project to further develop mental health provision for students across Liverpool.

The partnership, which includes the Innovation Agency, is behind a project that will employ staff in Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust’s Hope Clinic, which supports people following self-harm.

The Innovation Agency’s North West Coast Atrial Fibrillation (AF) Collaborative is one of 11 projects competing for the Quality Improvement Initiative of the Year award which will be presented at the end of day one of HSJ Patient Safety Congress in Manchester on 2 July.

The AF Collaborative was set up as part of our programme to help tackle atrial fibrillation and reduce strokes in the North West Coast.

The Innovation Agency is a partner in a new HealthTec Cluster launched at Sci-Tech Daresbury.

The aim is to grow successful health technology businesses, develop world firsts in medical science and deliver life-changing health innovations both in the North West and nationally.

An innovative new approach to reduce the risk of older people breaking bones could save the NHS over £35 million, across the North of England, if it is fully scaled-out across the region.

Without trying to measure the impact of changes, we will never know which ways of organising services will be most helpful in maximising benefits for patients and minimising costs. Researchers can help service leaders clarify goals, gather relevant evidence and identify appropriate methods to assess service changes, local and national.

The findings from a survey to identify local NHS innovation and research needs have been published.

The views of local health stakeholders, including clinical leaders, managers and directors, within each AHSN (Academic Health Science Networks) region were collected through qualitative interviews with 61 people and a questionnaire which received more than 250 responses in total.

Nominations are now open for the NHS in the North Excellence in Supply Awards. The awards are for any business which currently supplies goods, works or services to NHS trusts in the North, and any NHS trust in the North.