Health Innovation Leeds: City healthcare partners launch new plan to boost research and innovation

Leading the Health Innovation Leeds launch is Leeds Academic Health Partnership (LAHP), one of the biggest partnerships of its kind in the UK and the only one in Yorkshire and Humber.

The partnership aims to bring together the expertise of members to help solve some of the city’s hardest health challenges. Its membership comprises the NHS, universities, the City Council, charities and regional partners in health, care, business and skills.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive officer and LAHP chair elect, Professor Phil Wood, said: “Leeds is renowned for breaking new ground in demonstrating world-leading health innovation. Its strong track record includes the National Pathology Imaging Collaborative, world firsts in interventional radiology and a UK first in hand transplantation.

“We are working more closely together as a city in our focus on local people’s greatest health needs. With this focus, we are expanding our portfolio of research and strengthening our engagement with industry innovators, both locally and globally. As a result, Leeds is repeatedly leading the field in discovering and adopting transformative new approaches in health and care.

“Health Innovation Leeds will help bring all this together in a compelling offer to national and international audiences and cement our city’s position as the first-choice location for the sector.”

Health Innovation Leeds describes the city as “the heart of West Yorkshire’s health, life sciences and digital technologies sector.”

The city is home to the headquarters of numerous national health and care-related organisations, including the world’s largest single healthcare system, the NHS. Organisers of Health Innovation Leeds claim that this enables closer collaborations between local and national partners, demonstrated through groups such as the Leeds Health and Social Care Hub.

Kate Lodge, partnership director at Leeds Academic Health Partnership, said: “The launch of Health Innovation Leeds could not come at a better time as the city is now at the forefront of healthcare innovation, including strengths in healthtech, digital, data and artificial intelligence.

“Working closely with all our partners, we want to ensure that more people benefit from the great work in our city, such as translating research into practice and enabling innovators to develop their products. Health Innovation Leeds will help us spotlight these strengths and provide a gateway to our unique health research and innovation ecosystem.”

In November of last year, West Yorkshire was also named as the Government's third Investment Zone, making it eligible for £160m over 10 years in flexible spending and tax incentives.

The Government and the West Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority announced that the West Yorkshire Investment Zone would focus on life sciences, digital and tech.

It is expected that the Investment Zone will support over 2,500 jobs over five years, and help to leverage more than £220m in private funding.

Paxman Scalp Cooling, based in Huddersfield, was the first to commit investments into the zone, investing £5m to bring its products to the global market.