The Innovate Healthier Together (IHT) Fellowship is a community dedicated to reimagining health and care across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. It serves as the go-to-network for both new and established health and care innovators with a passion for improving health outcomes across the region.
Sign up to the Innovate Healthier Together FellowshipThe IHT Fellowship provides space for health and care professionals across all disciplines to remove themselves from the operational pressures of their day-to-day roles. By providing time to think creatively, be inspired, and make meaningful connections, our health and care change makers will be empowered to reimagine how we deliver our services to the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire community.
“The Fellowship gives us the opportunity to do things differently. We now have the chance to create a community that will support each other, be brave enough to innovate, to test, fail, and learn from that. In the end, it’s about doing things better. This Fellowship is a group of people that can start us off on that great journey.” – Professor Sir Steve West CBE
Latest news
Innovate Healthier Together Development
In partnership with the West of England Academy, a three-module accredited training course has been developed to support the adoption and spread of innovative mindsets.
Covering design-thinking, quality improvement and facilitation skills, these modules provide participants with the skills and techniques to support others better understand the problems they are trying to solve, and methodologies for innovative solution ideation.
If you’d like to find out more about how you can access these courses, please send an enquiry to healthinnowest.ihtfellowship@nhs.net
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NHS Data Mapping Tool
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FREE – AI in Healthcare course
Funding Call
Upcoming Innovate Healthier Together Fellowship events
The Innovate Healthier Together Fellowship regularly hosts exclusive events, delivering a mix of online and in-person engagement opportunities for the community. We aim to create forums for collaboration and knowledge exchange, supporting our fellows in continuous learning, exchange of the latest trends, and discussion regarding advancements in health and care.
These events serve as vital touchpoints for people from diverse backgrounds to connect, share insights, and explore new ideas in the industry.
Our goal is to cultivate an environment where interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly around innovation, is not just encouraged but actively facilitated and supported.
These events are exclusively for Fellowship members.
Sign up to the Innovate Healthier Together FellowshipThe dates and locations for some of our upcoming events are still to be confirmed. Be sure to check our socials and this webpage regularly for the latest updates.
Once you are a Fellow, you will have access to our email group and our private LinkedIn group, where you will also get all the latest updates about the Fellowship and our multiple resources and tools.
Events calendar
Core Improvement Skills: Generating Ideas for Change – Taster Session
When: Week commencing 4 November 2024 at 12 – 1pm
Where: Microsoft Teams
Hosted by: West of England Academy
The Design-Thinking course offers a proven approach increasingly used across the industry, which can help gain a true understanding of critical problems, define challenges to be addressed, use creative thinking tools to identify potential solutions and then prototype and test these solutions. All the tools we use are part of the Health Innovation West of England Creative Problem Solving Toolkit available.
This taster session is an opportunity to gain insight on how to foster innovation and creative problem solving within your daily practice. We will be demonstrating some of the innovation techniques which can be accessed through the accredited Design-Thinking course offered by the West of England Academy.
Want to know if this course is right for you? Dan Knight from the NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB Transformation Team has taken this course and shares his insights in this article.
How to use LinkedIn - Masterclass
When: November 2024 – date to be confirmed
Where: Online via Microsoft Teams
Hosted by: Brand and Communications Specialists, Purplefish
This online LinkedIn session hosted by PR, social media, and communications experts, Purplefish, will cover how to get the best use of LinkedIn.
Networking Event
When: November 2024 – date to be confirmed
Where: In-person – exact location to be confirmed
Hosted by: To be confirmed
An opportunity to network and connect with like-minded professionals and experts. Expert guest speaker to be announced.
Investment and Business Processes Procurement Regulations and Funding - Masterclass
When: December 2024 – date to be confirmed
Where: To be confirmed
Hosted by: To be confirmed
More information on this event will be published shortly.
Sustainable Innovation in Health and Care - Discussion Group
When: 21 January 2025 at 12noon to 1pm
Where: Online via Microsoft Teams
Who: Host to be confirmed
More information on this event will be published shortly.
Value-based Procurement - Masterclass
When: 11 February 2025 at 12noon to 1pm
Where: Online via Microsoft Teams
Hosted by: NHS Supply Chain
More information on this event will be published shortly.
Networking Event
When: March 2025 – date to be confirmed
Where: In-person – exact location to be confirmed
Hosted by: To be confirmed
An opportunity to network and connect with like-minded professionals and experts. Expert guest speaker to be announced.
Evaluating our Services: Creating a Roadmap to Measure Innovation Change – Taster Session
When: March 2025 – date to be confirmed
Where: To be confirmed
Hosted by: West of England Academy
A taster session hosted by the West of England Academy to cover how to understand and gather evidence to effectively measure innovation change.
How to RSVP to these events
If you are a Fellow, you should receive a Microsoft Office calendar invite via email with instructions on how to confirm your attendance at these events.
If you are not yet a Fellow but would like to join this event, please join the Fellowship first where you will have access to these and future events.
Join the Innovate Healthier Together FellowshipMeet the Innovate Healthier Together Fellowship Team
Ellie Wetz, Associate Director
I’ve had the pleasure of working at Health Innovation West of England for about 10 years now. I was also fortunate to be recently seconded to NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB for 18 months, so feel I know this system and all its partner organisations well.
I’m thrilled that the Fellowship has the potential to accelerate innovation into practice in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. I think the foundations are there – but with a bit of dedicated support to strengthen the culture of innovation through the practical application of design-thinking, networking, thought leadership and collaboration across sectoral and organisational boundaries, I think we could collectively and genuinely, achieve better outcomes for our citizens and patients.
Get in touch
If you see something that interests you, we would love to hear about it. Big or small, please don’t hesitate to get in touch by emailing healthinnowest.ihtfellowship@nhs.net.
Ellie Wetz
Associate Director of the Innovate Healthier Together Programme
Ellie.Wetz@nhs.net
Fellowship sign up
Interested in becoming a Fellow yourself? By joining, you’ll gain access to these exclusive events that are available only to members of the Fellowship. Don’t miss out – sign up to the Fellowship now.
Sign up to the Innovate Healthier Together Fellowship