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Our innovation portfolio is flexible to reflect the dynamic environment in which we operate - we are continually developing new projects whilst our involvement in others will come to a natural end. Our former projects are listed below. Whilst we are no longer involved, some of these projects may be continuing. If you would like to get in touch with any of these projects, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The InHIP project has been commissioned by NHS England’s Accelerated Access Collaborative team in partnership with the Health Innovation Network. The programme will offer funding and programme support to ICSs to enable the identification and adoption of innovations and technologies that address the five clinical priorities within the national Core20PLUS5 strategy – maternity, severe mental illness, chronic respiratory disease, early cancer diagnosis and cardiovascular disease.
Read more about our InHIP programme
‘Managing deterioration’ refers to spotting that a person’s physical condition is worsening and responding appropriately to support best health outcomes, keep them safe and provide a positive experience of care.'
East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative (PSC) delivered the Managing Deterioration Safety Improvement Programme (ManDetSIP) from April 2022 – June 2023, commissioned by NHS England.
Read more about our MandDetSIP programme
A feasibility study that proposed the use of energy smart meter analytics to monitor changes in the functional ability in the daily lives of older adults was planned. However, the project had many challenges with recruiting potential participants and the study was unable to continue.
The evaluation team therefore focused their report on the issues faced and lessons learned in attempting to recruit single older adults to a study that would use digital technology to promote independence in their own homes by monitoring behaviour.
Read more about the HOWZ (smart meter) programme
East Midlands AHSN collaborated with the General Practice Alliance in Northampton to deliver a real world demonstrator programme using the Alpha-Stim device. The device uses a low voltage current to induce changes to the electrical activity of the brain, from stressful rhythms to relaxing rhythms.
It has similar effects to the skilled practice of meditation/mindfulness. It is shown on EEG machines to increase alpha brain waves (related to relaxation and calmness) and reduce beta waves (related to excitement and stress).
Read more about the Alpha-Stim project
Details of our previous work in the prevention of cardiovascular disease - this includes blood pressure optimisation and Lipid Management and Familial Hypercholesterolaemia.
Read more about our previous work on Cardiovascular DIsease
Remote Monitoring in Care Homes was an East Midlands AHSN demonstrator programme – a pilot to test and evidence the use of a digital platform to enable care home professionals to more easily detect, manage and escalate deterioration. Our aim was to measure the effectiveness of digital tools in this setting and the impact this can have on residents, hospital admissions and for care home professionals.
Read more about remote monitoring in care homes
Improving outcomes for patients with respiratory diseases was a priority highlighted in the NHS Long Term Plan.
Each year a small number of NICE approved innovative medical devices, diagnostics, digital devices or medicines are selected as rapid uptake products by the Accelerated Access Collaborative for coordinated spread across Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs).
EMAHSN supported the spread and adoption of Asthma Biologics from October 2021.
Read more about Asthma Biologics
The East and West Midlands Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs), with the East and West Midlands Associations of Adult Social Care (ADASS), worked collaboratively on a pilot programme in 2021/22, commissioned by NHS England and NHS Improvement in response to the LeDeR (Learning Disability Mortality Review) report.
The LeDeR report highlights the poor health outcomes experienced by people with learning disabilities and the challenges they and their families and carers have in identifying signs of health deterioration early and preventing health problems.
Read more about the LeDeR project
Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) chatbot was an East Midlands AHSN demonstrator programme – a pilot to test and evidence the use of a person-centred chatbot solution, capable of continuous improvement, to support IAPT service user engagement.
EMAHSN worked with Trent PTS who are commissioned to provide IAPT services in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
EMAHSN supported the pilot in these areas – from January 2021 to November 2021.
Read more about the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) chatbot
The Transfers of Care Around Medicines (TCAM) programme uses a safe and secure digital platform that enables clinical handover from the hospital to pharmacists in the community. This enables patients who may need extra support with their medication to be referred on discharge from the hospital to their community pharmacy to receive more support and advice. TCAM is used by a high proportion of trusts in the East Midlands.
Now mainstreamed by the NHS as part of the Discharge Medicines Service, this is a great example of how AHSNs not only spread innovation. Impacts continue to be sustained and amplified since our formal role ended in March 2020.
Read more about Transfers of Care Around Medicines
Electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD) is a way of supporting efficiency within GP practices and community pharmacies, whilst also creating benefits for the patient. Our work to support the wider deployment of eRD was prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic, to reduce footfall into GP practices and pharmacies, create efficiencies and provide an easily accessible supply of medication for patients.
Read more about the eRD programme
ESCAPE-Pain is an evidence-based, group rehabilitation programme for patients with osteoarthritis. The programme incorporated chronic pain management to support participants’ physical and mental approaches to their pain and develop effective coping mechanisms. Although the project support has ended with EMAHSN it has been sustained with a partnership between Health Innovation Network (HIN) and Orthopaedic Research (ORUK) and is still being offered across the country.
Read more about ESCAPE-Pain
As part of our work to reduce the risks of inappropriate polypharmacy, this project evaluated the impact of introducing specialist frailty pharmacists within a multi-disciplinary secondary care frailty pathway, compared to standard care.
It involved the evaluation of primary and secondary care records for 700 patients who received care at Nottingham University Hospitals.
Key results from the evaluation include that;
View the full report here.
The digital urinary tract infection (UTI) pathway was a demonstrator project trialled for a six month period across a number of pharmacies in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
The pathway used a digital UTI test, which combines a standard dipstick urine test with an app that turns any smartphone camera into a clinical grade medical device. In this trial pathway, participating pharmacies used the results of the test to either rule out a UTI or, if the patient’s result was positive, the patient was able to receive antibiotics, without a GP appointment.
Read more about the digital UTI pathway demonstrator
PINCER which stands for (Pharmacist-led INformation technology intervention for reducing Clinically important ERrors in medication management) was a project that involved running searching using a clinical system to identify when patients are at risk of medication related harm from commonly prescribed medication.
EMAHSN worked with the PRIMS team at the University of Nottingham to support further uptake of the programme across the East Midlands and nationally via the AHSN Network.
Read more about PINCER
Project update: The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on the East Midlands Patient Safety Collaboratives LPZ quality improvement project for care homes, project, and we were unable to run the LPZ audit in 2020.
After careful consideration, we made the decision not to continue with the LPZ audit locally and are in discussions about a longer term plan for LPZ, using the learning and evidence from the project and previous audits.
You can read more about LPZ lessons learnt and model for scale-up discussion paper here.
We are continuing to support care homes in the region with their quality improvement work - find out more on our support for care homes web page. If you would like to find out more please get in touch with This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Read more about the LPZ project
Following a long term conditions innovation exchange in January 2017, we supported the development of a demonstrator project in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR). Demonstrator projects provide the opportunity for innovative approaches to be tested and evaluated in real world settings.
This project brought together health and care providers, commissioners, local councils, and other agencies in Leicester to introduce digital and technological approaches to identifying and reducing falls risk.
EMAHSN’s involvement with the project ended in May 2021.
View the project's lessons learnt document summarising key insights.
Cerebral palsy affects approximately 2.5 in every 1,000 babies. It is estimated that the average lifetime healthcare cost for an individual with cerebral palsy is around £800,000. About 1 in 10 babies of very low birth weight will develop a form of cerebral palsy and the use of magnesium sulphate in preterm labour reduces the risk of cerebral palsy by 30%.
The PReCePT (Prevention of Cerebral Palsy in Pre-Term Labour) project focused on reducing the incidence of cerebral palsy by offering magnesium sulphate to all eligible women in England during preterm labour – less than 30 weeks.
The programme was selected for AHSN national adoption and spread in 2018, and is now active in 11 maternity units across the East Midlands.
Resources are available for participating maternity units here.
Serenity Integrated Mentoring (SIM) is a mental health workforce model that brings together police and community mental health services in order to better support those with complex mental health needs.
The model seeks to support the training of specialist police officers and deploys them within community mental health services to help support service users struggling with complex, behavioural disorders.
Collaboratively with system agencies, including Derbyshire, Northamptonshire Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, EMAHSN supported the roll of SIM between 2018 and 2020.
The project supported 248 high-intensity users across the East Midlands between 2018 and 2020.
View the end of project status report summarising SIM implementation at April 2020.
Please note that Professor Tim Kendall, National Clinical Director for Mental Health, asked Mental Health Trusts to review their models of care for service users experiencing cyclical and regular crises including, where adopted, SIM. The outcome of these reviews will be considered by NHS England during Autumn 2021. A link to the AHSN Network’s responses to the Freedom of Information request on SIM, is available here: https://www.ahsnnetwork.com/freedom-of-information-foi-requests
As part of our Medicines Optimisation portfolio, we commissioned The University of Leicester to review current social prescribing activity across the region to support the work of East Midlands colleagues and to identify how our resources could be best utilised.
Social prescribing takes a holistic approach to people’s health and wellbeing which enables health professionals to refer people to a range of local, non clinical services.
There is emerging evidence that social prescribing services can improve patient outcomes, reduce GP attendance frequency, and reduce prescribing.
The research involved the creation of exemplar case studies from each of the counties in the East Midlands and the development of a survey tool used to identify the range of social prescribing schemes in use across the region and their core components.
Read more about the social prescribing tool and view resources
The faecal calprotectin test is a non-invasive test, which helps GPs to identify patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis to provide a timely referral to secondary care for ongoing treatment and management.
Lower gastrointestinal symptoms are very common. Most often these are caused by irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which affects 10-20% of the population.
The test prevents patients with IBS, who present with similar symptoms, from being unnecessarily referred to secondary care and avoid invasive investigations, such as colonoscopies.
East Midlands AHSN have produced an audit tool which can be used to baseline faecal calprotectin testing to enable systems to review and reflect on those who are being referred unnecessarily for invasive tests in secondary care.
The Atrial Fibrillation (AF) programme was active in the East Midlands from 2016 and focused on improving the detection and treatment of AF in primary care.
This was achieved through sharing learning and best practice in embedding detection approaches in to existing pathways and providing skills support to improve treatment.
The programme also supported increased collaboration between GPs and other clinical support groups, such as pharmacists, to deliver more timely treatment and evaluation of these approaches.
Read more about the AF Advance programme
The diabetic foot service digital solution programme enables rapid escalation and de-escalation of patients with diabetic foot ulcers to and from secondary care, and increases accuracy and objectivity of assessments through use of 3D wound imaging and measuring technology and remote sharing of data.
The aim of this programme was to reduce the number of follow-up appointments taking place in hospital outpatient clinics, by enabling remote monitoring of patients’ wounds in the community.
Over the course of the intervention, an average of 19% of patient appointments for foot ulcers were delivered in the community, compared to all appointments being delivered in an acute setting prior to the intervention.
Read more about Diabetic Foot Care Digital Solution project and view resources
Emergency laparotomy is a common but major surgical procedure that is undertaken for a variety of acute intra-abdominal conditions. Between 30,000 and 50,000 are performed every year in the UK. However, around 15% of patients are reported to die within 30 days of surgery.
EMAHSN set up an Emergency Laparotomy Collaborative which shared best practice. The aim was to encourage collaboration across multidisciplinary teams to improve standards of care.
This programme was a national project - a joint initiative between the Academic Health Science Network and the East Midlands Patient Safety Collaborative.
The EMAHSN Scarred Liver project supported the development of a community based liver diagnostic pathway which has proven to more effectively detect chronic liver disease at an early stage, increasing the chances of halting further deterioration or reversing the impact.
The pathway combines the identification of patients at risk (as a result of their lifestyle) with a non-invasive diagnostic test using a Fibroscan® - a mobile scanner that highlights liver scarring.
EMAHSN worked with multiple partners including Nottingham University Hospitals and Chesterfield Royal Hospital to support the implementation into various sites across the East Midlands.
Read more about The Scarred Liver Project and view resources
Group Psychoeducation is an evidence-based, NICE-approved (CG185, QS95) 21-week intervention for people with bipolar disorder.
Groups typically consist of 12-14 people with bipolar disorder and three facilitators; a clinician (e.g. community psychiatric nurse, occupational therapist or psychologist), a psychiatrist, and a peer facilitator with lived experience of bipolar disorder.
EMAHSN worked with Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to spread the intervention to other NHS mental health providers across the region:
Read more about Group Psychoeducation and view resources
Implementing i-Thrive for Children and Young People’s (CYP) Services in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland
This programme focused on innovation and improvement in child and adolescent mental health services. It is estimated that 1 in 10 school children will have a diagnosable mental health or neurodevelopmental condition, which can have a significant effect on their day-to-day life and later life. The scope for the i-Thrive model was implemented within Leicester Partnership NHS Trust.
EMAHSN project involvement was between December 2019 – March 2020. For further information view the Implementing i-Thrive for Children and Young People’s Services in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland case study.
EMAHSN worked with University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and IBSL (UK) Ltd. To roll out a unit dose closed loop medicines management solution at the Trust.
The system – called OptiMed-ID – uses robotic technology to package individual doses of medicines for patients. This reduces waste and also avoids prescribing errors, which are a particular risk for patients who need complex combinations of medicines.
EMAHSN supported the expansion of this solution within University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.
EPIFFANY (Effective Performance Insight for the Future) was developed in response to evidence showing that junior doctors in their early years can make double the prescribing errors of other health professionals.
Developed by the University of Leicester with support from EMAHSN, Pfizer and Health Education East Midlands, it focused on team working, feedback and technology-enhanced learning. Proven to reduce errors of junior doctors and boosting confidence. View resources here.
This programme aimed to reduce inequality of care provision for stroke survivors and their families to ensure they are supported throughout recovery journey. A number of useful resources were developed as a result of this project. View resources here.
The eHNA (electronic Holistic Needs Assessments) cancer project brought together innovative digital technology with a ‘holistic needs assessment’ (HNA) tool. Patients complete the eHNA assessment using a tablet device which records results from a concerns checklist and feeds information into a database to create an individual care plan.
It ensures cancer patients’ physical, practical, emotional, spiritual and social needs are met and empowers patients to take an active role in managing their wellbeing.
This cross-sector, multi-agency partnership worked with service users to create the first ever advance planning guide for people with Bipolar Disorder. The guide assists with advance planning and provides guidance on the Mental Capacity Act.
Big White Wall is a digital mental health and wellbeing service for people who are anxious, down or not coping. This East Midlands pilot focused on providing different tiers of access via computer, smart phone and tablet, ranging from peer support and professionally-guided self-care to live therapy.
This project sought to provide community access to therapy for bone metastases in cancer patients by moving the administration of Denosumab XGEVA® (a NICE-recommended drug therapy for adults with advanced cancer) out of hospital.
Many employers are unsure how they should support employees with mental illness. This project created an online knowledge hub to provide a single source of evidence-based best practice approaches, with sign-posting to existing sources of local support.
Patients worried about their family history of breast cancer are frequently referred to secondary care inappropriately. Often GPs do not feel equipped or confident to conduct the in-depth consultations required to calculate the risk of familial breast cancer.
FaHRAS (Family History Risk Assessment Software) helps reduce inappropriate secondary care referrals by building, storing and analysing a family’s history to accurately quantify the person’s risk.
This system uses SMS to communicate with patients, supporting self-care and compliance whilst delivering efficiencies through ability to manage larger caseloads. Flo is owned by the NHS and at around 8p per text is cost-effective to administer and free for patients.
Healios offers online support to people affected by psychosis, as well as their families and carers. Providing support online means service users and families can take part in therapy sessions from different locations, rather than via a health worker visiting the family.
We supported 10 East Midlands universities and Health Education England with funding to develop ways of working together to share, develop, showcase and spread their innovative work related to healthcare training and education.
This helps people with severe and enduring mental illness to get into employment or to stay in education or training - especially younger people. It uses employment specialists in mental health teams to help individuals overcome specific barriers to work.
Support for older people living with frailty is provided by many different agencies such as hospitals, community clinics, councils and care homes. We worked with the NHS Benchmarking Network to develop a system that collects data from the many partners – sharing information to identify how care can be improved.
The Leicester Diabetes Centre developed a proven intervention that can reduce the risk of developing diabetes in participants by 88%. It wanted to put forward this intervention for the NHS’ national Healthier You: NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme but needed a delivery partner.
EMAHSN negotiated a collaboration with Ingeus UK Ltd and the intervention was successful in winning NHS supplier status as part of the national prevention programme.
GPs and primary care nurses conduct consultations via Skype with patients with learning disabilities and neurological disorders in care homes, improving pro-active management of residents' mental and physical health.
This supported the East Midlands Respiratory Network to develop and share best practice approaches to conditions including asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
The Tomorrow Project focused on supporting people in distress and reducing suicide. It developed two care pathways: primary care suicide crisis provision (to reduce suicide risk and support people in crisis) and suicide bereavement (to support those bereaved by suicide and reduce the risk of further suicides).
This investigated ways to improve patient access, experience, referral routes and pathways for adult obesity prevention and care. It brought together commissioners, providers, public health and other stakeholders in obesity prevention and care to review current practice and inform obesity prevention and care pathways.