Salford looks to the Future of Health

Future of Health 2015 was a one-day event hosted by the University of Salford addressing challenges and opportunities for a changing NHS.

The conference focused on how to deliver patient-centred care, efficiency and leadership. Speakers included Professor David Haslam CBE, chair of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), Raj Jain, the executive director of corporate strategy at Salford Royal NHS FT, and Dr Martin McShane, director of long term conditions at NHS England.

Digital innovation, and the best way to integrate this into daily practice, was a key topic across the day. Dr McShane highlighted that whilst technology has transformed many other areas of our lives – such as the ease with which we now use mobile banking – significant cultural barriers to this take-up exist in health.

Professor Shahid Ali, professor of digital health at Salford University and chair of the event, said that access to electronic health records was not enough on its own to instigate better outcomes and engagement. Patients must be able to use that information, and be enabled to take action and responsibility for the management of their own health – particularly with long-term conditions.

Chris Yeowart, director of Wellbeing Software Group mentioned the Salford Lung Study as an example of the work around data sharing and analysis taking place in Greater Manchester. To learn more about the technology behind this study, NWEH’s Linked Database System (LDS).

It was a very informative day, allowing key stakeholders to discuss tricky issues of finance, quality of care and the importance of innovation. For more coverage of the event, see the hashtag #FutureHealth15