Are LED and placemaking professionals playing health roles in their local communities? In the striking final LEDC guest episode of 2024, David and Mike talk to Richard Stubbs, Chief Executive of Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber who persuasively argues this bold statement. The episode explores the critical interfaces between growth, economic development, and the health sector. We may be at a change moment where place-based economic investments more purposefully target health impacts alongside economic outcomes, and health policies and programmes more explicitly recognise the need to improve the economic viability and resilience of places and communities. We explore barriers to improved collaboration and how devolved arrangements and even shared strategic planning tools and techniques can be part of the solutions to overcoming them. If all of us are now playing health roles in our work and lives, perhaps the episode’s conclusion is that, correspondingly, place-based NHS and health innovators are themselves doing LED and placemaking jobs!
Reaffirming shared health and local economic agendas and priorities
We are at a moment where health innovation is critical to national missions and local priorities of economic growth and competitiveness AND addressing health inequalities to reduce economic inactivity. The potential for win/wins from improved collaboration are huge. Richard gave practical examples – a local NHS diagnostic centre in Barnsley Town Centre improving patient access to health services whilst concurrently increasing retail and leisure footfall and town centre vitality; and wider productivity gains that digital innovation can deliver for health outcomes, fiscal savings and workforce skills improvement, among others.
Overcoming the barriers to improved collaboration
Our discussions ranged from translating the ‘languages’ of the health sector and sub-national governance, to the different mandates and perspectives that a national-facing NHS has compared to locally facing politicians and institutions. Richard recognises the NHS’s co-responsibilities for these barriers and constraints. The NHS needs to be a better customer of local health and life sciences clusters, better at accelerating spread and adoption of innovation, and in empowering local role players on entities like Integrated Care Boards. He particularly welcomes the co-chairing of Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) Boards by the Mayors of South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. Local and Combined Authorities and their economic teams need to understand and articulate the opportunities for investments to deliver multiple outcomes including health benefits. We need to deliver local and regional roles in public health, prevention and early intervention more consistently and effectively to create 'healthy' local economies.
At the frontiers of health innovation
Richard shared fascinating examples at the forefront of health innovation of relevance and interest to LEDC listeners. A West Yorkshire data science company has developed a tool using AI on existing blood tests to identify better cancer treatment pathways. Ambient Voice Technology can greatly improve both doctor – patient relations, increase workforce productivity and de-bureaucratise NHS processes. A strategic planning framework – ‘CORE20Plus+5’ – is a game-changing way of prioritiising health inequality strategies and priorities that should be in the toolbox of those of us looking at tackling deprivation and addressing health-related economic inactivity.
Concluding remarks
The episode with Richard was particularly timely. It builds on the recent espresso shot on the Get Britain Working White Paper and its health/work/skills interfaces, and it anticipates the Devolution White Paper which will give us a greater sense of the UK Government’s intentions regarding how far health investment, services and innovation will become in-scope of Combined and Local Authority reforms.
Do let us know what you think and share your experience of landing win/win collaboration with the NHS and wider health sector. Whilst a health sector perspective has been a longstanding feature of LED strategies, it does feel like 2025 will be a major reset moment for deepening and broadening this focus. The ‘we are all health workers’ now statement from Richard, and our ‘we are all economic role players’ response to his NHS colleagues will become even more of a reality.
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