One year of the Innovate Healthier Together Fellowship

 

An update from the Innovate Healthier Together Fellowship.

One year ago the Innovate Healthier Together (IHT) Fellowship launched, and over this past year, this Fellowship together professionals across health and care sectors, fostering innovation, learning, and meaningful connections. Here’s a recap of the highlights from this inspiring journey:

Key events & sessions

Launch event – May 2024

Over 120 health and care professionals with diverse skillset gathered at The Mount Without in Bristol on Wednesday 1 May to officially launch the Fellowship. This event set the stage for collaboration, idea-sharing, and exploring ways to drive innovation across health and care services in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

Communities of interest – innovative ways to improve access to services – June 2024

Following the IHT Fellowship launch event in May, we ran a poll for Fellows to vote for the IHT Communities of Interest topics and Access to services was the front runner. This led to the first Innovate Healthier Together (IHT) Fellowship Community of Interest which was codesigned with Fellows to discuss within an overarching theme of the innovative ways we can improve access to services. The session was designed in the form of ‘market stall’ huddles following a similar structure to an Open Space with a few of our Founding Fellows prepped to lead the huddle topics. The Huddle leader for that topic then recruited a couple of other Fellows to join in their huddle.

The session was hosted by one of our Founding Fellows, Marc Griffiths, Pro Vice Chancellor for Health at UWE, and Paul Howarth from Akumen opened the session by giving a presentation on psychological safety. Afterwards, Fellows broke out into discussion huddles to consider different innovative ways to improve access to services. One group focussed on the co-production of community care, while the other discussed governance across boundaries: breaking rules safely. The discussions emphasized the need for innovation to be community-led, bottom-up and inclusive of diverse voices, putting patients at the centre and working towards a service model where every contact counts.

Discussion groups

  • Leading in complexity and enabling the adaptive process in people and organizations – June 2024

Led by Joanne Medhurst – Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB’s Chief Medical Officer, the session explored cultural change, psychological safety, and the adaptive space for innovation. Fellows reflected on the importance of storytelling in shifting mindsets.

The session was centred around Mary Uhl-Bien’s thought-provoking lecture on “Leading in Complexity and Enabling the Adaptive Process in People and Organisations.” Fellows discussed cultural change, and the importance of psychological safety as a condition for innovation. Other discussion themes included that Story telling is essential for changing mindsets, Structural change is understood and easy to achieve; cultural change is much more complex and the ‘adaptive space’ is often not recognised or acknowledged when looking to innovate in health and care systems. The Fellows participating in the group discussion came from a range of professional backgrounds – the diversity of their perspectives made the conversation rich, interesting and inspiring. Feedback was incredibly positive after the session with all participants sharing that they had enjoyed the session and the opportunity to converse with other Fellows on a topic that wasn’t typical to their portfolio. They found value in the conversation and appreciated some time out of the ‘day job’ to consider new perspectives – they all said they’d like to be involved in the next Discussion Group.

  • Leading with purpose in the digital age – July 2024

Facilitated by Holly Paris (GP and Associated Clinical Director of Pier Health Group), fellows discussed Brene Brown’s podcast – ‘Leading with Purpose in a Digital Age’ on Friday, 12 July. This podcast is a conversation between renowned researcher and New York Times best-selling author Brene Brown and Dr. Linda Hill, a top expert on leadership and innovation. The podcast highlighted the difference between leading for innovation rather than leading for change and focusing on inclusivity in innovation. Fellows discussed the importance of co-creation and collaboration over traditional top-down leadership models, feeling safe to disagree, and viewing failure as a learning opportunity.

  • Handling failure in innovation – October 2024

This discussion tackled the need to embrace risk and view failure as a stepping stone for growth. Marc Griffiths, Pro Vice Chancellor for Health at UWE hosted the session. Discussions highlighted that while innovation requires a willingness to take risks, understanding and embracing failure is equally essential.

  • User-centred design – December 2024

Facilitated by Sam Menter, this session underscored the importance of engaging users to co-design meaningful healthcare solutions. IHT Fellows explored how the User-Centred Design (UCD) approach can transform healthcare services. UCD isn’t just about creating solutions; it’s about identifying people’s needs and solving healthcare issues by understanding human behaviour, minimizing barriers in the system and making it easier for people to access the care they need.

During the session, Suriya Kirkpatrick and Rochelle Gold, Head of User Research and User Centred Design Leader for NHS England, also shared about the foundation of UCD involving research and learning from the appropriate people who will use our health innovation or service. This process is essential in bringing diverse people together, engaging the specific group of people who the solutions are meant for, understanding their behaviours and the challenges they face. This engagement brings valuable insights which enables us design solutions that meet their need and specific context of use. UCD is a mindset and it is relevant beyond digital solutions. Non-digital interventions also benefit from this approach. Ultimately, patient and public involvement, collaboration across multidisciplinary teams, and adaptability ensures that innovators can take actionable insights, refine their solutions with every iteration and design innovations with outcomes resonate with people and make a real difference.

  • Sustainable innovation in health and care – January 2025

On 21st January 2025, the Innovate Healthier Together Fellowship hosted a discussion group on the role of sustainability in health and care. The session, led by Simon Hall of Bristol-based, Airway Medical, brought together Fellows to explore how sustainable practices can be integrated into the NHS.

The conversation highlighted the need for health and care innovation to be shaped by the people who use it. Sustainability, similarly, must consider real-world challenges. Making sustainable choices in health and care is complex, and decisions should be based on how products and services fit into everyday practice, not just their environmental impact on paper.

In addition, the group discussed the importance of looking at the entire lifecycle of health and care products, from sourcing materials to disposal.

  • Biopsychosocial innovation – how you can achieve it with co-production – February 2025

Sean Hourigan explored the importance of biopsychosocial innovation through co-production in health services. Sean talked about the Peer Partnership project, which supports the design and delivery of peer led services for various long-term health conditions. During the masterclass an emphasis was made on the value of the biopsychosocial model, which integrates biological, psychological, and social factors to improve health outcomes.

A standout example discussed was the Common Ambition Bristol project, which helped to engage Black, African, and Black Caribbean communities to improve attendance at sexual health clinics through a must needed culturally sensitive outreach. Sean also stressed the need for community to be embedded in patient pathways in various aspects of care.

This session mentioned key challenges in co-production, such as the need for clear communication as well as the more informed collaboration between healthcare providers and communities. Overall, it reinforced the importance to co-production which could lead to more effective, inclusive, and community-driven health innovations.

Mentorship

As part of our commitment to provide valuable mentorship through the Innovate Healthier Together Fellowship Programme, the Fellowship’s mentoring initiative matched Fellows as a mentor and mentee pair to foster growth and share expertise throughout their innovation journeys. Fellows who indicated interests in being a mentor/mentee during their membership registration to support their professional development.

Lunch and learn – September 2024

The final session of the Innovate Healthier Together – Monthly Lunch and Learn series which focused on tackling health inequalities, was led by one of our Fellows – Huda Hajinur from Caafi Health. Huda discussed the CHERIE model (Community Health Education scReenIng & prEvention), which delivers health education, screening, and prevention in the Bristol community.

Innovation showcases

  • Mental health innovation showcase – October 2024

This event was hosted by Dr Julian Walker, Director of Research and Development and featured experts from the Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP). The event focused on Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE), as well as Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in Design. During the session, we heard from colleagues, as well as people with lived experiences, regarding the importance of co-production, adaptability, and peer leadership in designing innovative mental health services. A key highlight was the importance of embracing a holistic approach to mental health service provision including the need to incorporate complementary and alternative therapies with professionals who aren’t part of health and care teams, especially while people are on waiting lists.

  • From idea to adoption – the S12 story – April 2025:

Amy Manning shared her inspiring journey from being a social worker to founding S12 Solutions, a platform designed to innovate mental health services. Motivated by her experiences with processes that caused delays in urgent mental health assessments, Amy partnered with Tim Webster to develop an app that better connects approved mental health professionals (AMPs) and doctors.

S12 Solutions became a success, achieving an 85% market share in England and later being acquired by health tech company Vital Hub. Amy attributed this success to strong stakeholder relationships, co-designing with service users, and fostering collaboration during implementation. Her story powerfully demonstrated the positive impact innovation can have on mental health services when combined with deep insight and a strong commitment to change.

West of England Academy – design thinking taster session – November 2024

West of England Academy hosted a Design-thinking Taster Session for Innovate Healthier Together Fellows. This interactive session was intended to expose Innovate Healthier Together Fellows to a small example of the tools and techniques that form part of an accredited full-day Design-thinking course.

The session started with an introduction to various innovation tools and concepts. Participants were then taken into small breakout rooms where they were given a creative challenge (purposefully not health and care related): to brainstorm on some different ways in which we might develop environmentally sustainable and safe transport solutions for Bristol? The task was to think of both incremental improvements and radically different ideas and to assume limitless budgets.

An additional aspect to this challenge was to consider it from the perspective of different commercial organisations, such as Apple, Tesco, SpaceX, Ecotricity etc. The ideas were creative, fun and ambitious! By using creative thinking tools and techniques in small groups, we can rapidly generate a large volume of ideas to address a health and care problem we are trying to solve – lots won’t be appropriate or applicable, but some may spark the germ of an idea that could lead to something innovative, deliverable and effective that could genuinely improve our health and care services and positively impact our population. Overall, this interactive session explored creative tools to solve healthcare challenges and demonstrated to Fellows how creative ideation can drive innovative healthcare solutions.

 Masterclasses – November & December 2024, February 2025

  • Optimising your LinkedIn with Purplefish PR: Fellows learned how to use LinkedIn effectively to network, share insights, and enhance their professional profiles. During the session, we heard from PR Experts, Lucy McKerron, and Rianne Mason who spoke about the importance of using LinkedIn to network, learn, share your knowledge, and stay updated as an innovator within the healthcare sector. Particularly ensuring that we are updating our LinkedIn profiles, posting diverse content, and engaging with our peers regularly. A key highlight was maximizing additional LinkedIn tools such as LinkedIn articles, LinkedIn Groups and supporting the Fellowship on LinkedIn.
  • Business & investment masterclass: procurement regulations & funding: Richard Scott and Brett Cohen discussed navigating procurement regulations and securing funding with interdisciplinary collaboration and change management. They shared about the need for applying a systematic approach in navigating the complexities associated with procurement regulations and funding across the health and care system. Considerations on interdisciplinary collaboration across various professions, lots of stakeholder engagement, applying change management processes, more supportive frameworks and demonstrating that an innovation provides the best value for money were some of the useful approaches highlighted when procuring health and care innovations.
  • Value Based Procurement (VBP) masterclass: In this masterclass on Value Based Procurement (VBP), we were introduced to Sam Otorepec and Carrie Short who explained the purpose of the Care Pathway team and their role within the NHS Supply Chain to support Integrated Care Systems to drive care pathway efficiency and enhance patient outcomes.

The importance of the NHS supply chain, and its role in delivering clinically assured goods and services to health and care providers across England, was highlighted alongside its ability to manage a significant annual spend and ensure stock availability and product safety. NHS Supply Chain priorities can vary, from reducing health inequalities and improving patient outcomes to embedding clinical leadership and contributing to sustainability targets. The Care Pathway team aims to support this to ensure patient safety and consistent quality of care.

Ultimately, this masterclass provided valuable insights into the role of the Clinical Pathway team and the NHS Supply Chain in driving efficiency and improving patient outcomes through Value Based Procurement. By leveraging data-driven approaches, engaging stakeholders, and exploring innovative solutions like Transnasal Endoscopy, the team aims to enhance care pathways while ensuring sustainability and financial feasibility.

Other activities

Fellows contributed as assessors for the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) program, bringing their clinical input, diverse insights and expertise to identify impactful innovations.

Looking ahead

This past year of the Fellowship highlighted the power of ideas sharing, learning, unlearning, relearning, collaboration, adaptability, and co-production across our network with the view of transforming health and care in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. We’re excited to see what the rest of 2025 will bring as we continue to innovate and learn together.

Thank you for being a part of this journey!