Insight, impact and learning: reflecting upon a year of innovation in the South West

We are delighted to share our Annual Review 2021-2022 with you, highlighting impact from our work with partnerships across the region over the past year. 

This year has been one of progress past the immediate response to COVID-19, and implementing the learning from that time, as well as looking to the future.  

Jon Siddall, Chief Executive Officer of the South West AHSN, says:  

You can read exciting examples from across all areas of our work with national and regional partners, including how we are bringing our capabilities together to support the development of our three Integrated Care Systems.  

Our Annual Review 2021-2022 features impact and learning from a range of projects highlighting the vital role of innovation within our region, including:  

• FeNO (Fractional exhaled Nitric Oxide) an effective new method for diagnosing asthma where the regions uptake trajectory was exceeded by 680% for machines, and 538% for mouthpieces. 
• PERIPrem project (Perinatal Excellence to Reduce Injury in Premature Birth): supported 698 babies across the South West and West of England AHSN regions between April 2021 and February 2022. 
• Our showcase event this March where national and regional health and care system leaders and practitioners came to together to share insight, opportunities and challenges around innovation distinctive to the South West as a coastal and rural region.  

This year also saw us launch the second strand of our regional health equity programme, adding Children and Young People’s Mental Health to our first strand of Perinatal Health Equity. In support of this, we ran our first Health Equity Innovation Challenge, with the first three winners featured in the Review. Building on the learning from this work we have just launched a further programme.  

We would like to thank all our colleagues and partners for all their work and support over the last year. We hope you enjoy reading more about our work together and our collective efforts to transform lives through health and care innovation which continues into 2022/23. 

Read the South West AHSN’s Annual Review 2021-2022 here.