New £60 million Regional Innovation Fund among measures to boost research and development
- DSIT Secretary Michell Donelan has announced A £60 million Regional Innovation Fund (RIF) that will boost support for universities in areas with lower levels of research and development investment
- Over 110 universities to benefit from pilot Regional Innovation Fund (RIF) to grow local economies
- An extra £8 million has been pledged towards more artificial intelligence scholarships to help UK sector further excel
Chris Whitty: Using NHS data to improve healthcare
- Professor Sir Chris Whitty writes for The Times on how using data effectively and safely can improve patient care and bolster research
Unlocking the power of health beyond the hospital – NHS Confederation report
- The NHS Confederation and CF have worked closely over the past 12 months to demonstrate the value of the NHS as an investment and released this report as an outcome
- This third report goes further than previous ones, exploring system productivity as it relates to spend. This issue is particularly timely: acute healthcare spending between 2020/21 and 2021/22 grew faster than any other form of NHS spending, despite performance continuing to be challenged with pressure on A&E, beds and discharges
- Our earlier reports demonstrated the important role primary and community care play in creating health value. For the purposes of this report, we have performed a deep dive into community care given the general ambiguity surrounding the services that make up this NHS setting
BIVDA appoints Helen Dent as interim CEO
- In case anyone missed it last week, the big news has been picked up by MedTech Innovation News
Welsh Govt expands bowel cancer screening programme
- The age at which people in Wales are eligible to receive an at-home bowel cancer screening test has been lowered to 51
- The move is based on a UK National Screening Committee recommendation and is part of a phased approach to getting the age down to 50
- Those eligible for the test will receive a FIT which, since being introduced by the Welsh Government in 2019, has increased screening uptake to 65% in the 55-74-year-olds group which automatically qualify for the test
When the drugs don’t work: can we do anything about antimicrobial resistance?
- An important article which explains the worrying future that Africa, and indeed we all, will have to confront if we do not tackle AMR
UKHSA and ONS launch winter Covid-19 study
- A study to gather vital data on COVID-19 this winter has been launched by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
- The Winter COVID-19 Infection Study (WCIS) will run from November 2023 to March 2024, involving up to 200,000 participants.
- The new WCIS is a different study and will involve up to 32,000 lateral flow tests being carried out each week, providing key insight into the levels of COVID-19 circulating across the wider community. This sample will be broadly representative of the population according to key characteristics.
