UCLPartners shortlisted for two Innovate Awards
Our Living With Covid Recovery app, currently in use across 30 NHS trusts, has been nominated for an ‘Excellence in Patient and Public Involvement in Transformation and Innovation’ award at the Innovate Awards 2022.
With limited research and guidance available, devising effective treatment plans for patients of Long COVID has proven difficult. To address this problem, we spoke to hundreds of patients, gathering their real-life experiences. We asked them what they wanted and needed to feel supported and cared for as they navigated their Long COVID recovery.
To date, the app, which was developed in partnership with UCL, Barts Health NHS Trust, NIHR ARC North Thames, NIHR ARC Wessex, University of Southampton, University of Exeter and health-tech start-up, Living With, has helped 5,500 patients and their medical teams to better manage the symptoms of long COVID.
Michael Duffin, Commercial Lead at UCLPartners said: “We’re delighted to be nominated for this award, as it’s a testament to the strength of the partnership-working across our Enterprise Team, Industry and academic institutions to enable uptake of this programme by our NHS partner organisations. Long Covid is still a little understood condition, so the vital contributions of our patient partners have had a massive impact on the development and evolution of this digital technology, and will continue to inform the future of treatment and management of this condition”
Chris Robson, CEO, Living With: “It’s great that the Living With Covid Recovery app has been nominated for the Innovate Awards – this has been the most rewarding partnership that we have ever had. Living With has been working with an awesome and comprehensive set of clinicians, patients and academics of all types to iterate and improve a product for a new condition, without an established pathway. It has led to over 30 NHS Trusts using the product in different ways. If only all of our partnerships and innovation processes were as effective as we have had with our Covid recovery product.”
Our Proactive Care Frameworks, adopted by 30 primary care networks across North Central London and North East London, and supported nationally by all 15 AHSNs as part of the National Blood Pressure Optimisation programme, have been nominated for an ‘Outstanding Contribution to Population Health Through Innovation’ award.
Since 2020, we have developed a series of Frameworks with the aim of helping primary care to weather and emerge from the COVID pandemic stronger, able to restore and transform care for people who are living with long term conditions.
The Frameworks have been included in the Royal College of GPs national pandemic recovery guidance and the Hypertension Framework is a core part of the National Blood Pressure Optimisation Programme. Primary Care teams up and down the country are using our Frameworks to better identify and care for their patients who are most at risk of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, atrial fibrillation, asthma, severe mental illness and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Laura Boyd, Director of Implementation for Cardiovascular Health at UCLPartners said: “It’s a real honour to be nominated for this first year of the Innovate Awards. We developed the UCLPartners Proactive Care Frameworks to ensure that all patients with long term conditions received the care they needed despite the pandemic, and are delighted by how well received they have been in communities across the country. A big thank you to all the AHSNs who have tirelessly supported their uptake of the Frameworks locally”
Debuting this year, the Innovate Awards are a collaboration between the AHSN Network and the NHS Confederation. They celebrate excellence in innovation and transformation across the health and care system.
Over 80 finalists were whittled down from over 190 submissions across 10 categories, with the winners announced at the awards ceremony on 29 September.
Richard Stubbs, Vice Chair of the AHSN Network said: “We need to value and sustain the innovation culture within the NHS and part of that is about recognising and rewarding our amazing innovators. These awards will provide a fantastic opportunity to showcase the great work that is happening in health and care innovation, as well as helping us to identify, spread and adopt the opportunities that exist to transform services.”