The Bright Ideas in Health Awards is now celebrating its 18th year. The Awards are organised by The Academic Health Science Network for the North East and North Cumbria (AHSN NENC).
The Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals and teams working within the NHS, industry and academia, who have risen to the challenge of telling us how, and where, they believe that the services provided to patients can be improved, either through a technical innovation or through better service delivery.
Everyone can play a part in developing innovative solutions to the healthcare challenges that we face every day. The competition, depending upon the category, is open to all SMEs, NHS organisations and academic institutions in the North East of England and North Cumbria.
With many thanks to all our proud sponsors...
Headline Sponsor
The Bright Ideas in Health Awards 2022 Categories are:
Sponsored by The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI)
This category relates to an idea for the development of a new medical device, new piece of equipment or diagnostic tool.
This will have been developed by a member/s of staff within the NHS. This may be an independently led project, work carried out as part of a team, or through collaboration with either a company or university. We are extremely interested in learning how your work has been picked up and adopted elsewhere.
This award recognises the development of a collaboration with industry that addresses a significant need(s) and has or will have a major positive impact on patient care.
This includes, but is not limited to, reduction in treatment time, cost benefit etc. Applicants should be able to demonstrate how the collaboration provides an innovative solution(s) and how it can add benefit to the NHS.
Sponsored by Health Education England North East (HEENE)
The category is open to individuals, teams or organisations that provide innovative teaching and learning methods, including development of devices, platforms, solutions and initiatives that raise education quality and make it accessible for relevant groups.
This category is not open to those who have been funded from or are employed by HEE (NE) in any capacity, or is a HEENE or national initiative.
Please ensure that you have developed your submission with all who were involved with the project, and appropriate credit is given.
The aim of all patient safety initiatives is to ultimately reduce avoidable harm within the health system.
This could involve everything from improving communication between teams to reviewing staff mix, to encouraging staff and patients to speak up about risk. Some risks we know and understand – yet we fail to action key learnings to reduce them. There are more subtle risks that will become apparent only when we look at safety incidents systematically. But whether we are dealing with known or unknown risks, there is a need for a culture in which staff can confidently report risks and concerns and know that these issues will be taken seriously and investigated in order to prevent harm from occurring in the first place.
At a time in which championing patient safety is more crucial than ever, this award recognises not just initiatives focused on identifying risk and preventing it but also projects that have introduced a culture in which incidents are reliably reported, investigated and learnt from.
Eligibility: This category is open to healthcare organisations, teams and collaborations across the public and third sectors who have developed successful and continually improving patient safety initiatives.
This award recognises innovators or organisations who have gone above and beyond in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Celebrating those who have truly nurtured an innovation adoption culture where good ideas are quickly identified and spread within and beyond the boundaries of the organisation.
This category recognises initiatives that have used technology and digital systems in a truly innovative and patient-focused way to improve healthcare provision.
Entrants must be able to demonstrate the benefits of their initiatives in terms of improved health outcomes, patient experience or service effectiveness.
Examples may include: Introducing technology to capture data that is accessible to all professionals and services involved in individual patients’ care; Using existing technology in new ways to increase its benefits; and Developing new ways of capturing data on patient outcomes or service effectiveness. Whilst innovation is undoubtedly important its value is strengthened by its ultimate adoption.
Eligibility: All NHS organisations (including providers, partnerships and systems), General Practice and primary care organisations.
There is a clear interdependence between the environment and public health, a healthier environment (and associated behaviour such as active travel) means healthier people, and healthier people have a lower impact on the environment by requiring less treatment and/or fewer medicines.
Our award is looking for innovative contributions to the improvement to any of the four pillars of the sustainable healthcare aligned to the I.C.S’s 2021 Green Plan which are:
- Prevention: innovations that improve public health by tackling underlying causes of disease; i.e. air pollution.
- Patient empowerment and self-care: innovations that educate the public and give patients a greater role in their own health.
- Lean systems: innovations that increase the efficiency of healthcare delivery.
- Low carbon alternatives: e.g. innovations in low carbon medicines.
Eligibility: All NHS organisations (including providers, partnerships, and systems), General Practice and primary care organisations.
Health inequalities are the preventable, unfair and unjust differences in health status that arise from the unequal distribution of social, environmental and economic conditions within societies, which determine the risk of people getting ill, their ability to prevent sickness, or opportunities to take action and access treatment when ill health occurs.
NHS England and NHS Improvement’s Core20PLUS5 approach aims to support the reduction of healthcare inequalities experienced by communities most at risk at both national and system level. The approach defines a target population cohort; i) the 20% most deprived and ii) ‘PLUS’ groups experiencing poorer than average care. It also identifies ‘5’ focus clinical areas requiring accelerated improvement – maternity, severe mental illness, chronic respiratory disease, early cancer diagnosis and hypertension case finding.
This award recognises innovative and creative initiatives which aim to reduce healthcare inequalities at a national or local level – especially those which align with the Core20PLUS5 approach. Therefore, award entries should have a focus on the most deprived communities, inclusion health groups (any population group that is socially excluded.
Judges are looking for entries that drive tangible improvements in access, experiences and outcomes for patients, carers, people and/or communities. Winners will be projects co-designed and co-produced with patients, built on strong local partnerships, that use data and insights effectively and intelligently to target interventions and demonstrate measurable impacts outlining what has actually made a difference to communities.
Eligibility: All NHS organisations (including providers, partnerships and systems), General Practice and primary care organisations.
Sponsored by the NIHR Clinical Research Network
This award is open to people who have used innovative approaches to deliver an NIHR Portfolio study/studies by working across organisational boundaries. Examples could be primary and secondary care joint working, researchers working with local authorities, joint working between the NHS and Care Homes, researchers working with a community organisation or charity, delivering studies across regions.
This award recognises teams of innovators who have gone above and beyond.
Celebrating those who have truly nurtured an innovation adoption culture where good ideas are quickly identified and spread within and beyond the boundaries of the organisation.
The finalists ceremony took place on Thursday 23 March 2023 at The Hilton Newcastle Gateshead Hotel.
© 2023 Bright Ideas In Health Awards
For enquiries, please contact sarah.black@ahsn-nenc.org.uk