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The Northern Powerhouse: backing the plan to make the North great


Landmark report sets out details of how North can tackle productivity gap, create an extra 850,000 jobs and drive health care innovation.

The report issued today sets out proposals for four areas of Northern excellence: health innovation, digital technology, advanced manufacturing and energy  which could, with government funding and business support, rival the best countries and regions in the world and transform the North’s economy.

This includes £100 million to reinforce the North as the UK leader in health data by investing in harnessing patient data to diagnose, treat and deliver services more effectively and efficiently across the region, as well as further improving  data-led clinical trials.

The North is already home to the only real-world data-led clinical trial (Salford Lung Study), which established new pan-regional ways of working in clinical trials and is driving to position the North as a world leading, real-world trial centre.

As the lead on the IT and EHR systems for the Salford Lung Study, we are extremely pleased to see a proposal backing health innovation and highlighting the importance of connecting UK expertise and data to deliver health and wealth benefits to the region. Programmes such as this and the nationally-leading Connected Health Cities data programme, which are already delivering private sector return to the region, require investment to scale up infrastructure and deliver even more benefits.

O’Neill, the former Goldman Sachs chief economist who sits on the NPP board, said investment in those four areas would be “game-changing for the north and of a sufficient magnitude that it would boost the rate of growth of the country as a whole”.

In a foreword to the report, Osborne called for the north to bring together its areas of expertise that were currently “in pockets across the region, separated by traditional geographic boundaries with proud local identities”.

Last month the Prime Minister gave her backing to the project, adding the Government will see to "help the great cities and towns of the North pool their strengths and take on the world". We’re looking forward to being part of it!

(Read the report Powerhouse 2050: The North’s Routemap for Productivity)

“There's a real excitement now in the north about what we can achieve if we work together. I don't want us to lose that” George Osborne.


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