Skip to main content

Birmingham Health Partners Centre for Regulatory Science and Innovation director appointed

Written by Louise Stanley on . Posted in Birmingham Health Partners.

Leading AI healthcare expert Professor Alastair Denniston has been appointed Director of the Birmingham Health Partners Centre for Regulatory Science and Innovation (BHP-CRSI).

Professor Denniston, who is Professor of Regulatory Science and Innovation at BHP founder-member the University of Birmingham brings a wealth of experience and expertise to his new role, having established himself as a leader in digital health and artificial intelligence-enabled medical technologies.

His team’s pioneering research in medical imaging and artificial intelligence (AI) applications in healthcare has attracted international acclaim, positioning him at the forefront of medical innovation.

Professor Neil Hanley, Head of the College of Medicine and Health at the University of Birmingham and Executive Director of Birmingham Health Partners said: “We are delighted to welcome Professor Denniston as the Director of BHP-CRSI. His vision and leadership will be instrumental in driving forward our agenda to drive innovation in regulatory science to promote efficient, safe and cost-effective implementation of new therapies, for the benefit of patients and society.”

Established in 2020 under the leadership of Professor Mel Calvert, BHP-CRSI serves as a collaborative hub for regulatory science and innovation, bringing together academia, industry, regulators, healthcare providers and patients. BHP-CRSI experts work with UK and international health regulators, using scientific and analytical skills to help optimise the regulatory process itself and accelerate innovation that can improve patient care.

The Centre’s activity is broadly grouped into three pillars: policy development; research and innovation; and capacity building and education. This helps ensure that innovation can be both effective and efficient, ensuring patient safety whilst also ensuring that patients can benefit from the best medicines and health technologies. The Centre has internationally-recognised expertise in critical areas such as AI, patient-reported outcomes, diagnostic tests, real world evidence and clinical trials.

Alastair Denniston

Professor Alastair Denniston, Professor of Regulatory Science and Innovation at the University of Birmingham and Honorary Consultant Ophthalmologist at BHP founder-members University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) said: “I am honoured to lead BHP-CRSI and contribute to Birmingham Health Partners’ mission of improving patient outcomes through innovation. Together with our partners across the healthcare ecosystem, we will strive to create a supportive environment for regulatory science research and innovation, ultimately benefiting patients locally and globally.”

Prof Denniston’s appointment comes at an exciting time for the BHP-CRSI, with a number of its experts having been awarded UK Government funding to explore the creation of national Regulatory Science and Innovation Networks in high priority areas, including in AI and Digital HealthTech (led by Associate Professor Xiaoxuan Liu and Prof Denniston) and Advanced Therapies (led by Dr Olalekan Lee Aiyegbusi and Prof Mel Calvert, working with the Cell & Gene Therapy Catapult Ltd).

Prior to being appointed Director, Professor Denniston was the AI Theme Lead for BHP-CRSI and Director of the INSIGHT Health Data Hub for Eye Health, spearheading initiatives that continue to transform healthcare policies in data, digital health and artificial intelligence. He continues in his role as Member of the Regulatory Horizons Council to the UK Government, and as an NHS clinician at UHB.

You might also be interested in:

BHP welcomes Birmingham Community Healthcare to strategic research alliance

Written by Louise Stanley on . Posted in Birmingham Health Partners, Health inequalities.

Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BCHC) has become the sixth NHS member of Birmingham Health Partners – and its ninth overall – adding crucial community care to the city’s strategic health research alliance for the first time.

BCHC provides more than 100 core NHS community services for the 1.1m people in Birmingham, as well as specialist rehabilitation and dental services for the wider West Midlands population of 6.5m. Its vision is to provide the best care possible to support the people who use its services, many of whom are among the most vulnerable in our society, to live well in healthy communities.

The Trust is active in research, with live projects including the EPIC Neck Study – evaluating a new approach to exercise for people with persistent neck pain – and Move More, which is testing the feasibility of an app to help people with long-term disabilities to increase their activity levels. Both of these studies are being delivered collaboratively with BHP founding member the University of Birmingham, with whom BCHC also works closely at Birmingham Dental Hospital.

Professor Lorraine Harper, Managing Director of BHP, commented: “BCHC provides vital services to adults and children across the city and beyond. Being responsible for the healthy management of long-term conditions and chronic illnesses, and a strategic focus on promoting equity and reducing health inequalities, their values align perfectly with BHP’s strategic objectives. We are excited to extend our collaborations with BCHC across our membership for the benefit of the patients and communities we serve.”

Dr Robbie Dedi, Chief Medical Officer at BCHC commented: “We are on a challenging journey to improve the health of our communities whilst ensuring equitable access and outcomes. Joining with BHP provides a really exciting opportunity to expand the research and evidence base across this field and translate this into practice. We look forward to BHP supporting research capability of our teams so they can make a lasting impact on patient care within their fields.”

New funding supports West Midlands healthcare and social work students into research

Written by Louise Stanley on . Posted in Birmingham Health Partners.

A collaboration between the NHS, social care and academic institutions across the West Midlands – including BHP’s Universities and NHS members – will inspire registered healthcare, social work and public health students to consider a range of research careers.

The National Institute of Health and Social Care Research (NIHR) has pledged £34.9m to encourage the regulated healthcare and social work professions into research roles as part of the new INSIGHT: Inspiring Students into Research scheme. This strategic move will accelerate the numbers of nurses, midwives, pharmacists, social workers and allied health professionals (AHPs) leading research and generating evidence to underpin care.

The West Midlands NIHR INSIGHT Consortium, led by BHP founding member the University of Birmingham, has been awarded £2.5m to provide fully funded research master’s courses to early career healthcare professionals and social workers. Working with local NHS trusts, students will be able to take the courses full or part time so they can continue their career pathways in healthcare. It is envisaged this initiative will provide the right start for the future research workforce and retain talent in the region.

For further information and to apply, visit the INSIGHT West Midlands Consortium page.

According to NIHR, the most recent headcount from 2017 showed that less than 0.1% of the nursing, midwifery and allied health professional workforce were involved with research. Yet it is well documented that research led by nurses, midwives, pharmacists, AHPs and other healthcare and social work professionals, and the contributions they can make as members of multidisciplinary research teams, can drive change to policy and patient care. Research is integral to high quality evidence-based care and has also been shown to increase job satisfaction for staff and improve retention, when conducted alongside delivering care.

The consortium sees seven universities and eight NHS trusts come together to accelerate the development and growth of future health and social work researchers. Suitable candidates will be allocated to higher education institutions and programmes according to discipline, personal and professional needs and student choice. The first cohort of places start from September 2024.

The programme will target those professions that don’t have much exposure to research during their professional training.

Professor Waljit Dhillo, Dean of the NIHR Academy, said: “We know how important early exposure to research is for building capacity within health and social care. The INSIGHT programme will offer over 300 funded research masters places per year and provide engagement activities that have the potential to excite and capture the imagination of students at an early stage in their career.

“I’m delighted that we can invest in our next generation of researchers in the West Midlands, and show students all of the benefits that research roles and careers have to offer.”

The West Midlands bid, put together with input from final year nursing students, patient ‘experts by experience’, early career clinical academics and research delivery staff from across our health and social care community, emphasised that research must reach out to all communities if it is to make a difference to the health and wellbeing of those living and working in the West Midlands. Collaborating institutions will seek to ensure that future practitioner researchers represent the communities they serve by ensuring access to funded postgraduate study.

Professor Liz Moores, deputy dean of Aston University College of Health and Life Sciences, said: “As a healthcare professional, having the knowledge and the ability to critically review others’ research and to meaningfully evaluate your own practice is a key part of improving healthcare for the future. This programme will help to support the workforce to develop those skills and Aston University is proud to be a partner in it.”

Dr Nikolaos Efstathiou, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Birmingham said: “We seek to provide a sustainable regional pipeline via which those motivated next generation researchers can acquire the skills and capabilities so they can have fulfilling careers delivering and leading research. With our many NHS, social care and research infrastructure partners we are fully committed to creating a positive place-based research and innovation environment for our talented graduates who aspire to be future clinical academics and research leaders.”

Professor Anne Topping, Professor of Nursing University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and University of Birmingham said: “The programme is important for future-proofing our sustainable regional research workforce. Our programmes will produce those professionals, who are able to work collaboratively, generate, translate and implement best available science and evidence into real world interventions, ultimately bringing benefits to care, and the health and wellbeing of our communities.”

Led by the University of Birmingham, the programme is a partnership with (BHP members in bold): University of Keele, University of Warwick, Birmingham City University, Coventry University, Aston University, Staffordshire University, as well as Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust and Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and other health and social care providers across the region.

Behind the scenes – meet the ROH research team

Written by Louise Stanley on . Posted in Birmingham Health Partners, Clinical trials, Experimental medicine.

Written for BHP by Ellie Keeling, Lead Research Nurse at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital

Birmingham is a major research hub with a thriving collaborative ecosystem convened by Birmingham Health Partners. Within this alliance, the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital (ROH) is leading the way in orthopaedic research, conducting clinical trials, observational studies, and laboratory research. Our work focuses on enhancing physiotherapy rehabilitation, developing therapies for bone tissue regeneration, and creating pharmaceutical treatments to reduce invasive surgeries and speed up recovery. ROH’s research aims to improve patient care, facilitate early diagnosis, support new drug development, and offer alternative treatments, consistently contributing new findings to the field.

The majority of this work happens behind the scenes. And the roles that make up this team are varied. They include our lab manager who oversees the management of the Dubrowsky Lab; research nurses; a research tissue bank co-ordinator; study co-ordinators; assistant clinical research practitioners; data managers; and a healthcare technician.

Research nurses play a vital role in delivering clinical research, guiding the patient as they go through the clinical research process and ultimately improving patient care and treatment pathways. It’s an incredibly diverse role, from recruiting patients for studies to collecting and tracking samples, and developing pathways to improve the delivery of trials. Because many clinical trials run over the course of several years, research nurses get to work with the same patients regularly and are able to build up a rapport with them.

Our research tissue bank co-ordinator manages our research tissue bank, which was established over thirty years ago and contains the world’s largest archive of frozen bone tumour samples – currently numbering 32,000 – including all orthopaedic malignancies as well as other benign and non-tumour tissue types. The research tissue bank is used by researchers across the globe who need access to bone and tissue samples that they can’t get elsewhere, with the samples supporting clinical projects to better understand cancers like chondrosarcomas (cancer of the cartilage cells) or develop new treatments for primary bone cancer.

The team is involved in a number of clinical trials, including the BASIS study and the RACER Hip and Knee studies. We are one of the main recruiting centres for the BASIS study, which is trying to find out which type of back brace is best for treating children and young people with scoliosis. The RACER Hip and Knee studies are exploring clinical effectiveness of robotic assisted hip and knee replacement. Pivotal to the success of these studies is patient recruitment – working closely with patients and recruiting them onto these clinical trials with empathy. Our assistant clinical research practitioners (ACRPs) are critical here, as this research couldn’t happen without the generosity of patient donations and their time. In this role, ACRPs work closely with patients to explain what research we are doing, explore how the patient could potentially participate in this research and support them through the process.

It’s essential that patient donations are viable and there are several steps required to ensure this. The role of the healthcare technician is a rare role, but a key one at ROH as it enables a clear and consistent pathway for the effective collection and packaging of patient bone and tissue samples.

Finally, our data managers keep all this work running smoothly by supporting the team with the collection and storing of patient data. This support helps our researchers identify what patient data could support new and existing clinical research as well as retrospective data-led research, all the while ensuring compliance and confidentiality.

While many research roles, especially in hospitals, are perceived as being behind the scenes, they are incredibly important bringing unique skills and knowledge and their contribution is crucial in making breakthroughs that can improve lives.

For more information on The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital’s research activities, visit Royal Orthopaedic Hospital – Research (roh.nhs.uk).

You might also be interested in:

Clinical trials programme kicks off with pulse survey

Written by Louise Stanley on . Posted in Birmingham Health Partners, Clinical trials.

As part of our ‘Reducing Bureaucracy in Clinical Trials’ programme, Birmingham Health Partners is seeking the views of research-active colleagues from across the research partnership to help inform our strategy and ensure patients get access to clinical trials, quicker.

BHP’s Clinical Trials working group – established in 2018 by Professor Pam Kearns – has highlighted a number of opportunities to increase efficiency and allow us to build on the growing national momentum to improve clinical trials delivery. Now, with the ultimate aim of reducing the overall time taken to set up academic clinical trials led within BHP, we are working to improve the experience of colleagues facilitating and navigating the set-up process and welcome views from Chief and Principal Investigators, trial management teams, R&D and support staff.

Senior Programme Lead Amy Smith said: “Input from colleagues across the BHP research community will be vital for our programme. By understanding your current experiences, we’ll be able to identify areas for improvement and ensure the right support is in place at every stage of the process.”

Sir David Nicholson, BHP board member and sponsor of the project, said: “This pivotal initiative is based on BHP’s shared belief that all patients should have the opportunity to take part in research, and the knowledge that research-active healthcare organisations perform better. We are all committed to working together to reduce bureaucracy and duplication of effort in clinical trials through this project, which will offer patients access to trials sooner and ensure innovations reach the clinic more quickly. The fantastic diversity of our regional population also means that our research, and the commercial innovations which result from it, will be applicable nationally and globally.”

The survey can be accessed at the following link – Reducing Bureaucracy Programme: Experience Survey – and is open to employees of any BHP member organisation involved in research delivery. The deadline for responses is Monday 12 August 2024.

The programme has been established to respond the challenges identified in recent reviews by Professor Adam Tickell and Lord O’Shaughnessy.

Birmingham Health Partners announces theme leads to drive strategy

Written by Louise Stanley on . Posted in Birmingham Health Partners, Clinical trials, Health inequalities.

The second city’s clinical-academic alliance, Birmingham Health Partners, has appointed three strategic theme leads to support the implementation of its new five-year mission: to work together, transforming Birmingham’s healthcare through high impact innovation.

Taking the new role of Health Inequalities Lead, Dr Joht Singh Chandan is a Clinical Associate Professor in Public Health at the University of Birmingham where his research focuses on identifying and addressing health inequalities – with a particular interest in abuse and violence prevention inspired by many years of working as a voluntary police officer.

As the UK’s third-poorest city, with a diverse ethnic profile and socioeconomic demographics, Birmingham experiences significant health disparities. Joht will develop a detailed action plan for improving population health in the city, underpinned by his experience of issues that impact widely on health and wellbeing; factors that prevent early detection; and barriers to accessing healthcare.

Joht said: “We shouldn’t see reducing health inequality as just the responsibility of public health bodies. The determinants of inequality are so interlinked that not only can we not tackle issues in isolation, we can’t tackle them as one institution. Working across the partnership and linking health data platforms, we’ll be able to work in a much more representative and inclusive way to improve physical and mental health outcomes for our local communities.”

Tasked with optimising data integration across the partnership, Professor Simon Ball has been appointed Academic Lead for Data. A Consultant Nephrologist, Simon has had various roles in developing electronic health care records and using data to improve patient care and support research. His other roles currently include Associate Director for the Midlands Health Data Research UK and Senior Responsible Officer for the West Midlands Secure Data Environment (WMSDE).

Simon said: “NHS Trusts in Birmingham were among the first to adopt electronic health records systems, meaning we have access to a wealth of data – including blood tests, scans and biopsies – spanning several decades. This can provide valuable insight into an array of diseases, health conditions and care pathways – but only if it is integrated. Working together, BHP and the WMSDE can ensure our data is analysed, learnt from and used to optimise healthcare across our region.”

Leading the ‘Reducing Bureaucracy in Clinical Trials’ programme is Amy Smith, an experienced Senior Programme Lead with considerable experience in clinical trials across multiple BHP NHS Trusts and NIHR infrastructure. The programme responds to the challenges identified by Professor Adam Tickell and Lord O’Shaughnessy, ensuring patients in Birmingham get access to clinical trials more quickly. 

Amy said: “I am very proud to be leading this exciting project which showcases BHP as a leader in clinical trials.  Through trust, transparency, and collaboration we will harness the extensive knowledge and expertise within BHP, delivering improved setup times. Ultimately our aim is to make trials accessible to a diverse range of patients, quicker – increasing our attractiveness to funders and industry partners.”