Medilink North of England News 2019 Medilink NOE News 2019 | Page 2

FOREWORD Welcome to the latest edition of Medilink North of England News, reflecting the breadth of Medilink’s North of England membership and the wider Health Sector. In this edition you will see a focus on Brexit, with perspectives from across the sector to give you greater insight into what it means for your organsiation. Set against our thematic backdrops, our forewords feature leading figures from across the Northern economy, involved in driving growth in the Health Sector – in this issue Tom Riordan describes Leeds’ ambition for health and well-being and economic growth. The views of Foreword contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Medilink. TOM RIORDAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, LEEDS CITY COUNCIL In Leeds, we are focused on putting people at the heart of everything we do. As we strive to achieve our bold vision of being a compassionate city with a strong economy, this is reflected in our ambitions for health and wellbeing and economic growth. We want to be a digital city where everyone can benefit from the advantages of digital and reach their full potential as well as be a healthy and caring city for all ages. This means understanding and nurturing our world leading HealthTech ecosystem for the benefit of the people of Leeds, the UK and beyond. We are focused on progress with meaning and therefore digital products and services born and implemented in Leeds are supporting people to live healthy, active lifestyles. They are ensuring that health and care professionals can better support the people they work with, they are supporting improvements in productivity and contributing to a more intelligence led, safer health and care service. Digital is the fastest growing sector in Leeds and the city region; with 22% of the digital health jobs in the UK we have a thriving HealthTech innovation ecosystem. We are home to two major GP Systems Suppliers (TPP and EMIS) and to BJSS who built and run the NHS Spine for NHS Digital. We also have a growing number of start-ups and scale-ups like Digibete, a video platform and social enterprise created in partnership with the Diabetes Team at Leeds Children’s Hospital. We also lead the way in Medical Technologies, including the long-standing presence of De Puy Synthes in the city. Leeds is home to some of the world’s biggest datasets including those held by NHS Digital 2 and world leading research and development through our four universities and our Teaching Hospital Trust. The latter are consistently developing new technology and training new professionals and the sector is at the cutting edge of innovation allowing people to gain more control of their own health. The Leeds Academic Health Partnership is our flagship project to harness academic expertise and research to improve health whilst driving forward innovation, through bringing together three of our universities, NHS organisations in the city and Leeds City Council. Our flagship programmes include the Leeds Health and Care Academy, developing joined up approach for innovative learning and development for our 57,000 strong workforce. The LAHP has also established the Leeds Centre for Personalised Medicine and Health, enabling Leeds people to benefit from the latest innovations, treatments and technologies. From local and regional projects, through to major UK programmes such as Grow MedTech which sees partner universities across the Leeds and Sheffield city regions leading on the commercialisation of healthtech innovation, we are making the most out of the wide ranging skills and talents we have in the great county of Yorkshire. Our participation in the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (MIT REAP) is also helping us to plan further interventions to ensure that our HealthTech ecosystem goes from strength to strength. It is this strength and depth through collaborations between the region’s best entrepreneurs, innovators and social pioneers and a relentless focus on working with local people that really puts our city and county in a great position for further growth in this crucial sector, and I am very much looking forward to what the next few years bring for this ever evolving area.