In May 2024, NHS England announced the implementation of Martha’s Rule across 143 pilot sites across the country. From April 2025 this was expanded to additional sites, including community, maternity and neonatal settings, emergency departments and mental health. This is part of a wider programme of work to improve the management of deterioration, incorporating work to improve prevention, identification, escalation and response to acute deterioration.

Our Patient Safety Collaborative is supporting the implementation of Martha’s Rule pilot sites across the North East and North Cumbria (phases 1 and 2) and in collaboration with UCLP, leading on the implementation of Martha’s Rule into maternity and neonatal settings nationally.

Find out more about Martha's Rule at:

NHS England » Martha’s Rule

Managing Deterioration and Martha's Rule Programme - National Deterioration Forum - Futures

Find out more about our Managing Deterioration Improvement Programme:

Patient Safety Collaborative

We discuss how social inequalities can have a knock-on effect for cardiovascular disease risk, and highlight the Healthy Heart Checks programme currently being delivered by Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria, that is leading the way towards early prevention against cardiovascular disease for women.

The UK’s health and care system is meant to serve everyone, but women, who make up 51% of the population, face challenges accessing health and social care. Although women generally live longer than men, they spend more of their lives in poor health or with disabilities.

The government published its first ten-year Women’s Health Strategy for England in August 2022 outlining the key issues across women’s health and the action plan being implemented to tackle these problems.

In alignment with the strategy, Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria has launched a newly established Women’s Health programme, which includes a range of projects to improve the health and social care outcomes for women and girls, whilst also supporting the reduction of inequalities and generating economic growth.

The programme is aligned to the priority areas identified in both national and regional NHS North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board women’s health strategies.

Resources: 

Read Tracy Marshall’s Healthy Heart Checks Blog

Healthy Heart Checks

heartuk.org.uk

In this special podcast for International Women’s Day, our guests discuss how menopause can impact cardiovascular disease risk and why it’s important to have a healthy heart check and to know your numbers, especially when it comes to blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

The UK’s health and care system is meant to serve everyone, but women, who make up 51% of the population, face challenges accessing health and social care. Although women generally live longer than men, they spend more of their lives in poor health or with disabilities.

The government published its first ten-year Women’s Health Strategy for England in August 2022 outlining the key issues across women’s health and the action plan being implemented to tackle these problems.  

In alignment with the strategy, Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria has launched a newly established Women’s Health programme, which includes a range of projects to improve the health and social care outcomes for women and girls, whilst also supporting the reduction of inequalities and generating economic growth. 

The programme is aligned to the priority areas identified in both national and regional NHS North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board women’s health strategies.

healthinnovationnenc.org.uk/womens-health

heartuk.org.uk

Professor Dean Fathers is the Chair of Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria, and he recently attended a trade mission to Romania organised by the RISE Institute.

In this episode, Dean leads a conversation with Dr Dawn Price and Jonathan Rowley, who were also part of the delegation, and they share their learnings - on how internationalisation - can improve and benefit innovative healthcare in our region.

Find out more about Professor Dean Fathers

RISE Institute is a dynamic non-profit association based in Transylvania, Romania, in the heart of Europe. RISE Institute aims at responding the challenges of the 21st century by fostering the sustainable growth of communities through skilling, up/re-skilling, research, innovation, and excellence in education, industry and in public sector.

Find out more at: riseins.org

NTH Solutions is an NHS subsidiary. As well as delivering exemplary services to our own Trust, we provide solutions nationally to external organisations that improve efficiency, safety and reduce costs. From revolutionary infection control products to a full suite of facilities services, we are proud and privileged to extend our NHS ethos and standards into the wider UK community.

Find out more at: nthsolutions.co.uk 

Mistura is a company of former NHS healthcare experts that provide digital systems in the UK. The systems give simplified medicines information and adherence resources to help patients, carer and healthcare staff, who want to take medicines safely and correctly by removing clinical language jargon, and informing what to be concerned about and when to take action that improves medicines health outcomes whilst reducing waste and NHS service demand.

A 2023 state of the nation document, (Kent Surrey & Sussex Academic Health Science Network and the National Innovation Centre for Ageing, 2023) identified £65m of NHS savings from 'preventable' medicines related hospital admissions that can be released from deploying systems, such those provided by Mistura.

The Choice and Medication Mental Health Website: 

Specialist Pharmacy Service Nationally Recommended Resource providing comprehensive yet simplified information on 25 mental health conditions and 175 medicines including simplified specialist information eg. medicines in pregnancy, comparison handy-charts with the main medicines leaflets translated to 20+ languages.

https://www.choiceandmedication.org/

The MaPPS system: 

Shortlisted for a Health Service Journal (HSJ) Improving Care with Technology Award, MaPPs creates Personalised Medicines Care Plans in different formats including language translations and Easy Read pictograms/short phrases that are particularly helpful for people with health literacy or cognitive challenges or for people with a learning difficulty. 

MaPPs also creates Reminder charts and Administration charts to help people at home to safely manage a daily schedule of multiple medicines and help staff know what to look for when helping others with their medicines taking eg. in hospital, residential or nursing care homes. https://www.mappsorg.com/

The What's my Drug? QR code portal:  Quick and easy access to simplified information about ANY medicines in different formats including text, Read Aloud, Easy Reads pictograms/short phrases and translation to empower people to “learn about their medicines” so clinical consultations are patient-centred and engaging.

A subscriber QR code portal is for patient-facing waiting areas, remote consultations or the portal link can be integrated in other digital patient platforms.

https://www.mappsorg.com/wmd/

As part our Medicines Optimisation work, the Medicines Safety Improvement Programme (MedSIP) aims to reduce inappropriate high dose opiate prescriptions for non-cancer pain, and supports better management of chronic pain across the North East and North Cumbria.

In this episode, Victoria Strassheim, our Pain workstream programme lead, talks with First Contact Practitioner physiotherapist, Carrieann Kirkup and Medicines Optimisation Pharmacist Katie Mellor.

Carrieann and Katie collaborate in primary care and here they share the lessons they have learnt to gain successful outcomes for everyone when encouraging the deprescribing of pain medication.

Find out more about how we are supporting pain management and opioid reduction at:

We also have a range of awareness resource tools that may be useful for healthcare professionals to support their patients to manage chronic pain more effectively.

Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria has partnered with NHS England’s Digital First Primary Care Team to deliver Digital Pioneers – a programme that aims to facilitate collaboration, exchange ideas and support the scale and spread of digital health innovations within primary care.

In this episode, Emma Richardson, Programme Manager for our Digital Transformation team, chats to Andre Yeung, a Pharmacist and Clinical Lead for North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), about how we have supported his innovation for the rollout of digital pharmacy screens and the digitisation of public health messaging.

Find out more about how we are supporting digital innovations within primary care at: healthinnovationnenc.org.uk/digital-pioneers

Find out how we support innovators through our Innovation Pathway at: innovationpathway.healthinnovationnenc.org.uk

Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria’s Medicines Optimisation programme launched in 2013, and aims to ensure patients get the best from their medicines to improve outcomes.

As part of this work, the Medicines Safety Improvement Programme (MedSIP) aims to reduce inappropriate high-dose opiate prescriptions for non-cancer pain, and supports better management of chronic pain across the North East and North Cumbria region.

In this episode, Dr Graham Syers, a GP and Clinical Lead for North East and North Cumbria’s Integrated Care Board, hosts a candid discussion with practitioners from across the healthcare system, who deal with the complexities of persistent pain, showcasing some of the improvements already made and the challenges involved with treating pain.

Find out more about how we are supporting pain management and opioid reduction at: healthinnovationnenc.org.uk/medicines-optimisation

In this podcast, Peter Lillie, Sustainability Innovation Manager for Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria, and Dr Matthew Sawyer, a North East GP and Director of SEE Sustainability, explore the NHS commitment to reach Net Zero.

They discuss some of the positive things that can be done to affect climate change, alongside some of the drivers for change that we are seeing both regionally and nationally. The theme for this episode is the small things that make a big impact,  introducing how can we all play a part in making small actions that can make a positive change to our health and the planet.

Recognising climate change’s threat to health, the NHS has become the world’s first healthcare system to commit to reaching carbon net zero by 2040.

Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria (HI NENC) IS working with partners across a range of disciplines to support the delivery of sustainability solutions and share best practice. Find out more here

Peter has more than 25 years of experience of implementing commercial strategies for start-ups and large multi-national enterprises, working across Europe, the Middle East and North America, with board level and leadership experience in the technology, communications, innovation and the health sector. 

Since 2013, Peter has focused on the environment and co-founded Presca Sportswear, to prove that a business can be commercially successful without having a detrimental effect on the wider environment and has taken the business on a journey from start-up to scale-up, via several investment rounds. 

To continue his mission to better understand how Environmental, Health and Financial Sustainability can be achieved in parallel, Peter joined the Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria to help develop their Sustainability Strategy Programme and support the drive to Net Zero and the levelling-up of Health Inequalities within the region.

Matt has worked as a GP for more than 17 years in the North East of England. He currently runs an environmental sustainability consultancy – SEE Sustainability – working to improve human and planetary health. He covers sustainability issues facing healthcare, including understanding their carbon emissions footprint and helping to produce roadmaps and action plans to meet the NHS Net Zero ambition.

Matt also has a MSc in Corporate Sustainability and Environmental Management. He has presented topics such as: 'What GP partners need to know about NHS Net Zero ambitions & climate action' and 'Should primary care have its own green plan within the ICS Green Plan?' and written articles such as:

The Academic Health Science Network North East North Cumbria delivers a national programme of work looking at cholesterol and lipid optimisation.

Recently, a number of new non-statin treatments that have been made available on the lipid pathway, which will help patients to reduce their cholesterol, and therefore reduce heart attacks and strokes.

Inclisiran is one of these new therapies, but what's really important is the way it has been delivered, taking a population health management approach, meaning that patients can access treatment much more quickly as it is rolled out through primary care.

This is a world-first and an exciting time to be involved in lipid management.

In this podcast, CVD Prevention Lead and Regional Coordinator, Nikki Holdsworth, talks to Barry Todd - a North East Pharmacist Practitioner and Wallsend Pharmacy Lead, and Matthew Hart - a Specialist Clinical Pharmacist with The Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals Trust, who are involved in lipid optimisation and management, and have experience of initiating and managing patients on one of these new therapies, Inclisiran.

Dr Joe Chidanyika is Programme Manager for the National Accelerated Access Collaborative and AHSN’s Lipid and FH Programme.

In this episode, Joe talks to our Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Programme Lead, Kate Mackay, about his passion for CVD, particularly when it comes to improving health inequalities.

He also highlights how his other passion for football helps him encourage better health and wellbeing through grassroot coaching.

Find out how the Academic Health Science Network North East North Cumbria (AHSN NENC is delivering the Cardiovascular Disease Prevention programme, part of which includes two national programmes mandated by NHS England and NHS Improvement and in partnership with NHSX.

Find out more about Dr Joe Chidanyika