Seasons Greetings from the AHSN NENC

15th December 2022

As 2022 comes to a close, our Chief Executive, Nicola Hutchinson, sends warm wishes for the festive period from the whole team at the AHSN NENC.

This year has felt noticeably different to the last couple of years, as we have started to move away from strict Covid-19 measures and been able to meet face to face at meetings and events again. On this note, it has been lovely to re-connect with so many of you this year and engage with stakeholders and our member organisations. As I reflect on the last year in my final message of 2022, I’m proud of our achievements to support the health and life sciences sector across the North East and North Cumbria.

One of the biggest new developments of 2022, was the introduction of our Integrated Care Board for the North East North Cumbria, which marked a new chapter for our NHS. It is great to see the benefits of this new system already, with organisations across health and care working closely together to improve the health of our communities. We were delighted to support our ICB NENC with their Innovation & Research Partnership Forum last month, where we worked with partners to share our ambitions for driving regional innovation and research.

In parallel with this work, we hosted the Health and Life Sciences Pledge pre-launch event earlier this month, bringing together innovators, academia and the NHS. Working in collaboration, our ambition is to make the North East and North Cumbria region, a world leading destination for excellence in health and social care innovation. The event was an opportunity to discuss how we can achieve this and together help to reduce health inequalities, increase investment and promote economic growth in the region. Thank you to everyone who attended the event and I’m excited to formally launch the Pledge early next year.

Entries for our annual Bright Ideas in Health Awards closed in early December and I’m delighted that this year we’ve had the highest number of sponsors for the Awards to date. The Awards, now in its 18th year, provide us with an annual opportunity to celebrate the wealth of innovation capability and entrepreneurial spirit across the regional health and life sciences sector.

On behalf of everyone at the AHSN NENC, thank you for your continued support and I’m looking forward to another busy and exciting year ahead.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year.