Projects

The Quantum Healthy Longevity Innovation Mission was launched by Collider Health and the National Innovation Centre for Ageing in November 2022 to create the world’s first test bed for health underpinned by growing understanding of the ‘exposome’ and links between health and climate- see the framework set out in the Lancet, Quantum Healthy Longevity for healthy people, planet, and growth and Prospect special edition for the Minister for the Future, Make the UK a living lab for mapping the exposome.

We are now developing the sandbox programme underpinning the blueprint. We are focussed on the opportunities the mission will provide for growth and jobs via innovation clusters, enabled by regulatory reform, to create a world test bed for health that will drive discovery and research in healthy longevity. The mission sits well in the UK government's plans for science and technology - 'need more international mission-based research/moonshots', mobilise pro-innovation regulation' 'develop innovation nation through regional clusters' 'leverage public sector investment for private sector finance' .

Business for Health (B4H) launched its ‘Year On’ report at the Watercooler event on 25 Aril with a keynote by Dame Carole Black, outlining the next phase of the Business Framework of Health, first set out in Framework for Health: Supporting businesses and employers in their role to enhance and level up health of the nation launched with the support of Chris Whitty CMO in October 2021. The report outlines B4H’s strategy to support the long-term health of the nation through preventative measures. Following on from the development of the Work Health Index, Business for Health and its partners are looking forward to initiating real-world projects across three pillars: workforce health, consumer health and community health to shape a healthier and more prosperous Britain

People's health is shaped by the social, cultural, economic and environmental conditions they live in – the wider (or social) determinants of health. Let’s Talk Crawley was a collaboration between Kent, Surrey & Sussex AHSN and West Sussex CCG to explore what a new offer of health could look like, informed by a series of conversations with communities across Crawley about their experience of health services as well as their perspectives on how their lives and health are influenced by other factors. Research was conducted with diverse communities across Crawley to inform future funding and policy decisions and the role of anchor institutions to enhance and level up health, meeting missions 7 & 8 of the government’s Levelling Up agenda.

The Open Life Data Framework, first introduced in The Lancet, was launched in November 2021 with the support of George Freeman MP, Science, Research and Innovation Minister. Its goal is to create the enabling conditions for public and private sector actors to share health-relevant data for public benefit while unlocking innovation to increase healthy life expectancy by 5 years while minimising health inequalities (‘HLE+5’)- mission 7 of Levelling Up. The Framework was developed with contributions from over 100 experts and organisations including Health Foundation, NHSX, Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, Ada Lovelace Institute, National Data Guardian, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and the CBI. The report can be viewed here.

Business for Health is a business-led coalition supporting long-term sustainable innovation and investment in preventative health and care. Its aim is to enhance the health and economic resilience of the UK, catalysing and facilitating business contributions to achieve Mission 7 of the UK’s Levelling Up ambition: to reduce health inequalities and add five years to healthy life expectancy (‘HLE+5’). A key priority for Business for Health is the development of an Index to to show what good business-led health intervention looks like, detailing the benefits to both workforce health and business growth, and to measure contribution of health as a part of a wider process to get ‘Health’ into ESG mandates (ie ‘ESHG’). In collaboration with the CBI, Business for Health launched its Framework with the support of Chris Whitty CMO in October 2021 (Click here to download the full Framework report)

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) commissioned this study to explore how social enterprise is evolving as a result of Covid-19 and the role it could play in supporting the healthy ageing agenda. UKRI’s Healthy Ageing Challenge is already supporting a portfolio of initiatives to develop new markets for healthy ageing and is interested in how social enterprises can contribute further to improving the experience for all. Collider Health managed the survey, focus groups and report working with Social Enterprise UK.

The APPG for Longevity’s report, Levelling Up Health, launched on 9 April Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health and Care, Professor Chris Whitty, CMO, and Henry Dimbleby, National Food Strategy endorsing its key recommendations. Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on our country, exposing our nation’s poor health and our health inequalities - 90% of those who died with Covid had significant prior poor health. A new healthcare system is essential to confront how unhealthy we are. The report sets out why this is needed and what should be done. It proposes a 10 Year Health Improvement Plan, and new Health Improvement Fund, a shift in political attitudes that have impeded progress, clear priorities for action and the need to challenge and change organisations that harm our children and our health.

Collider Health was commissioned by KSS AHSN and NHS I/E/X to develop the problem statement for personalised care and support planning in care homes, working with care home managers to take stock of the Covid-19 experience and to determine how best to move from the current state to an idea future state for digital PCSP to benefit care homes and their residents.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented strain on health systems and societies around the world. It has shone a light on health inequalities and reinforced the importance of fostering health resilience. It has also highlighted the importance of scientific research to protect the health and wealth of societies. Science Question Time held on 25 November 2020 brought together leading scientists and policymakers to reflect upon these factors and think about the broader implications for R&D, asking the key question: ‘How can we design research to serve ageing populations and those with comorbidities, and ensure that research is reflecting our societal aim of achieving healthy longevity?’ The report (that you can download here) communicates key themes and ideas that arose from the discussion and highlights areas for further work, aligned to opportunities in the environment.

Collider Health worked with the AHSN Network on a short research study to understand how technology has been an enabler in reducing the care burden and coping with the COVID-19 crisis, and to identify what should be sustained in the ‘new normal’ longer-term. The findings, released in a report (download here) launched as part of the NHS Confederation Rest Campaign in September 2020, highlight the importance of treating health as our greatest national asset to nurture and protect, with preventative health requiring more attention in the long-term. Importantly, social care needs to be given the same weighting as to the NHS to accelerate the move towards health and social care integration.

This report (download here) explores how impact investing is evolving post-Covid 19 in the healthy ageing marketplace, and how best to deploy investment specifically for impact investors and social enterprises.

Nearly 200 organisations were surveyed for the report, spanning traditional investors, venture capital/private equity funds, impact investors, social enterprises and not-for-profit organisations, either actively engaged in or considering entering the marketplace for healthy ageing products and services.

The report argues that social investment funds- and, indeed, any sort of social investment in public markets - need to be driven by purpose and impact with profitability as a way of ensuring sustainability and resilience.

Collider Health helped NHHX AI Lab to set up this Community of Practice, the ‘AI Virtual Hub’, on the Future NHS Platform to provide a community space for collaboration and shared expertise. By working together with the AI community, the Hub aims to accelerate the development of the most valuable innovations and expedite solutions to common problems; as well as growing mutual understanding of best practice. The NHS AI lab itself will use this space to test their thinking and invite contributions to two key projects initially: 1) The AI in Imaging Programme and 2) AI in Health and Care Award programme run by Accelerated Access Collaborative and the National Institute for Health Research.

Collider Health is a key contributor to the NHSX AI report published in October 2019, Artificial Intelligence- How to get it right. Putting Policy into Practice for safe data-driven innovation in health and care. This report sets out the foundational policy work that has been done in developing the plans for the NHS AI Lab that has received £250 million investment.

The summit is the second annual International Longevity Policy and Governance as part of Longevity Forum’s Longevity Week 2020, bringing together world-leading policy experts, representatives of government bodies, departments, healthcare and finance ministries, executives of healthcare and financial corporations, and senior academics to discuss, network and collaborate on initiatives to promote international longevity development. The theme this year is: Health Our Greatest Societal Asset: Multi-Stakeholder Global Collaboration for Health and Economic Resilience. Tina Woods is organiser and Chair of the Summit.

The Health of the Nation: A Strategy for Healthier Longer Lives was launched on 12th February 2020 with the support of Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health & Care (see his speech on GOV.UK). Since then the world has been changing profoundly as we are living through the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our action plan to implement the strategy’s 9 core recommendations has evolved accordingly, but with no less sense of urgency. We held online 4 round tables involving 300 people in May in collaboration with our strategic partner Longevity Leaders to set in train one of the core recommendations of the strategy: a Business Coalition for Healthier Longer Lives to incentivise socially-responsible business practices for health, including the development of a possible index to measure contribution to the nation’s health. The Wrap-Up Summary webinar is here.

The Open Life Data Framework, due to be published in September 2021, is intended to help researchers, policymakers and entrepreneurs work out what non-health data (like mobility, consumer, financial, environmental) and health data (like medical records) provide the most insight into helping individuals keep healthy while enhancing overall health resilience at a population health level. Published in the Lancet (here), the framework will lay the groundwork for the UK to deliver on its ambition to be a scientific superpower acting in the interest of the "public good".

There are now blood tests that can predict when you will die, and old drugs used to treat diabetes and other diseases are showing promise to stop ageing 'in its tracks'. Harnessing the power of genomics and artificial intelligence, for example, is speeding up our understanding of ageing and the causes of diseases like dementia we fear most- and we already know that lifestyle factors (including what you eat, how much exercise you get, and how social you are) can reduce the risk of all the 'diseases of ageing' and increase our healthspan. Organised by the How to Academy, Tina curated and chaired an event on 14 November 2019 with four leading scientists- Dr Aubrey de Grey, Dr Nir Barzilai, Dr Lynne Cox and Dr Sabina Brennan- at the forefront of some of the latest scientific and technological developments to help us answer the most important question: what is the secret to a long, healthy, happy life? John Gordon, CEO of How to Academy, said: “The talk was completely perfect and brilliantly engaged the audience as the volume of complimentary emails from audience members testified. A perfect introduction to the science of ageing.” The Guardian published ‘Scientists harness AI to reverse ageing in billion-dollar industry’

Tina Woods was invited to contribute to the White Paper produced by Barclays on the role of technology in the future of health and care accompanying an AI Frenzy event. The report covered 1) The current state of play with regards to the use of technology across healthcare, including the challenges and opportunities its implementation presents; 2) Whether the UK’s digital infrastructure is sufficient to support healthcare technologies; 3) The rise of self-care and wearable technology and the impact that has on businesses and patients; 4) How the regulatory environment supports the development of technology in the sector and 5) What the future of healthcare looks like from a technological perspective.

Collider Health is a partner of Longevity International, a social enterprise co- founded by Tina Woods to bring together start-ups, industry, academic and governmental stakeholders under one umbrella to provide a unified voice and coordinating vehicle for positive discourse and change to ensure the ‘longevity dividend’ is accessible to everyone. Longevity International manages the All Party Parliamentary Group for Longevity. The APPG chair is Rt Hon Damian Green MP. The Chair of the Strategic Advisory Board for the APPG is Lord Filkin CBE. The APPG plans to introduce a national strategy for healthy longevity by end 2019 - to turn the ‘problem’ of ageing into one of the most promising opportunities of the 21st century – and secure Britain’s place as a global leader in longevity underpinned by ethical AI.

Year two of a strategic programme working with NHSX and the National Academic Health Science Network (AHSN)- helping to build the AI ecosystem. The project involves mapping the landscape and identifying the major barriers and enablers to AI; building awareness of the potential of AI and disruptive innovation across the health and social care ecosystem; and developing a Content Hub and engagement strategy to support a growing ecosystem of AI innovators, industry leaders and system demonstrators.

In 2018 we published a report ‘Accelerating Artificial Intelligence in health and care: results from a state of the nation survey’ (supported by Secretary of State Matt Hancock and Lord O’Shaughnessy) which identified key areas of opportunity to drive impact, as well as the challenges to address. In 2019 we are surveying innovators on the Code of Conduct for Data Driven Health and Care Technologies; identifying best practice case studies; distilling top ten technologies that will help drive impact and achieve the NHS Long Term Plan; and facilitating collaboration around critical use cases.

Collider Health supported Longevity International in launching the world’s first international, cross-border, cross-sector International Longevity Policy and Governance Summit on 12 November 2019 as part of Longevity Week, bringing together world-leading policy experts, representatives of government bodies, departments, healthcare and finance ministries, executives of healthcare and financial corporations to discuss, network and collaborate on initiatives to promote international longevity development. Tina Woods, in her role as CEO of Longevity International, chaired the event and Collider Health provided content curation, speaker liaison, media and recruitment support.

Collider Health is working with AXA Health Tech & You and our partners Women of Wearables, One HealthTech and Our Mobile Health on two new categories for the 2019 AXA Health Tech & You Awards, celebrating entrepreneurs who are providing the most valuable, trusted innovations for consumers in the marketplace.

Amid a climate of significant developments in technology, changing consumer attitudes and increasing focus on wellness and preventative health, the AXA Awards created two new categories to recognise entrepreneurs in both early-stage start-ups and later stage businesses who are changing the way people think about their health, while helping to solve the big problems in healthcare. The new ‘Innovation’ category is geared to recognise pioneers in early-stage start-ups and the ‘Excellence’ category is focused on later stage businesses.

Working with the Expert Group, chaired by Tina Woods, we developed a set of principles embracing diversity, health equality and ethics to inform the assessment and judging process to identify world class innovations that can be trusted by consumers to help them and their families keep healthy.

Collider Health is working with Innovate UK to develop a strategic ecosystem for the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund- Healthy Ageing (£98 million), to help corporates, start-ups, third sector and investors form strategic partnerships and facilitate smart investment for long term, sustainable impact.

A key requirement is to encourage companies from diverse industries including energy, financial services, insurance, pensions, property, retail, banks and telcos to collaborate- and develop more radical ideas for a marketplace for consumer products and services 'that care' and which appeal to the aspirations and needs of the growing ageing community.

Collider Health worked with Imperial College Department of Computing to host a public event on 26 January 2018 on 'Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (AI)'. It is an important subject, with AI not only a new frontier in business and technology but also in ethics and risk assessment. Over 1000 people registered for the event, showing the growing public interest in this area.

The event was organised in collaboration with the Guardian, the media sponsor, and with other partners including Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. Please see article here that was featured in D/SRUPTION.

Collider Health is delighted to be working with AXA on their new ‘Women in Health Tech’ category of the 2018 AXA Health Tech & You Awards.  The category aims to support women who are changing the way people think about their health and how to care for others. Collider Health is working with Our Mobile Health with support from other partners including One HealthTech and Women of Wearables to discover exciting and innovative health technology that has been designed and pioneered by women.  While half the world’s population is female, and most health decisions are carried out by women only 9% of health tech businesses are founded by women , just 9% of investment into UK start-ups goes to female founders , and a mere 17% of the UK technology sector is female. The Women in Health Tech category of the AXA Health Tech & You Awards aspires to change these statistics by supporting women and celebrating their achievements in health technology.  Click here for one of a series of articles in MedTech Engine on diversity in health tech,

Future Health Collective (click here) held a round table on 17th November, 2017 hosted by the Government Office for Science, and with the support of our partners Auriens, Aging 2.0, Future Care Capital, Partnership for Change and Kent Surrey and Sussex Academic Health Science Network, involved senior leaders from the NHS, social care, third sector, industry, technology and policy to explore specific opportunities and barriers of using data to underpin new, person-centric and outcome- focused models of health and care. A number of projects are being explored in 2018 to address key recommendations (you can download the report here), that will inform policy and support the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund -Healthy Ageing (£98 million): consumer data-led preventive health frameworks, open health and care data standards, education on General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Trusted Data Exchange- a vehicle to encourage data philanthropy and share data to encourage innovation, support the SME sector, and facilitate adoption of technology by citizens.

Collider Health is proud to partner with Opinium Research and our latest collaboration, Data Powered Health- How Technology is Reshaping the Nation’s Attitude to Health, provides the latest insight into the public's appetite for embracing technology, trends in consumer adoption of health apps, and attitudes towards data sharing and health ownership.  This report shows how thinking has moved on since the publication in 2015 of People Powered Health- Engaging Citizens in the Future of Health and Technological Innovation.