Partners & Networks

The NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) is the clinical research delivery arm of the NHS.

The CRN supports patients, the public and health and care organisations across England to participate in high-quality research, advancing knowledge and improving care. It does this by meeting the costs of additional staff, facilities, equipment and support services so that research is not subsidised with funding that has been provided for health and care treatments and service. It also provides specialist training, information systems to manage and report research, patient and public involvement and engagement initiatives.

The CRN is comprised of 15 Local Clinical Research Networks and 30 Specialties who coordinate and support the delivery of high-quality research both by geography and therapy area. Our local CRN is the West Midlands; more information can be found on their website.

The CRN facilitates the Trust to provide high-quality clinical research so that our patients can benefit from new and better treatments.

The core purpose of the HRA is to protect and promote the interests of patients and the public in health and social care research. In order to achieve this they:

• make sure research is ethically reviewed and approved
• promote transparency in research
• oversee a range of committees and services
• provide independent recommendations on the processing of identifiable patient information where it is not always practical to obtain consent, for research and non-research projects.

For more information, please visit the HRA website https://www.hra.nhs.uk/

There are 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) across England, established by NHS England in 2013 to spread innovation at pace and scale – improving health and generating economic growth. Each AHSN works across a distinct geography serving a different population in each region.

They are the only bodies that connect NHS and academic organisations, local authorities, the third sector and industry, so are uniquely placed to identify and spread health innovation at pace and scale; driving the adoption and spread of innovative ideas and technologies across large populations.

The AHSN priorities are:

• Promoting economic growth: fostering opportunities for industry to work effectively with the NHS
• Diffusing innovation: creating the right environment, and supporting collaboration across boundaries, in order to adopt and spread innovation at pace and scale
• Improving patient safety: using our knowledge, expertise and networks to bring together patients, healthcare staff and partners to determine priorities and develop and implement solutions
• Optimising medicine use: ensuring that medication is used to its maximum benefit – improving safety and making efficient use of NHS resources
• Improving quality and reducing variation: by spreading best practice we increase productivity and reduce variation, thereby improving patient outcomes
• Putting research into practice: our strong links with academia mean we are uniquely placed to support the translation of research into clinical practice
• Collaborating on national programmes: our unified programmes focus on delivery of the SBRI Healthcare initiative (supporting SME interaction), the NHS Innovation Accelerator, Patient Safety Collaboratives and medicines optimisation.

Our local AHSN is West Midlands, for more information please visit https://www.wmahsn.org/

For more information, on the AHSN in general, please visit https://www.ahsnnetwork.com/

Health Education England (HEE) exists to support the delivery of excellent healthcare and health improvement to the patients and public of England by ensuring that the workforce of today and tomorrow has the right numbers, skills, values and behaviours, at the right time and in the right place.

More than 160,000 students are at this moment studying to be part of our future workforce. That includes doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, physiotherapists and many more roles - in fact there are over 300 different types of jobs performed by more than one million people in the NHS.

Their vision is to provide the right workforce, with the right skills and values, in the right place at the right time to better meet the needs and wants of patients - now and in the future.

For more information please visit: https://www.hee.nhs.uk/