About SEED
SEED is an evolving partnership of health, care, academic and voluntary sector organisations collaborating to improve the social, economic and environmental determinants of health in Lancashire and South Cumbria.
SEED Health Alliance aims to:
- Unite research and educational expertise of our universities with the strengths of our health and care system
- Create better research and innovation to spread it across the region
- Attract more inward investment and the best people
- Improve productivity, skills, jobs and economic growth
The founding SEED partners are the four universities - University of Central Lancashire, Cumbria, Edge Hill and Lancaster - working with the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System in its widest sense with all the providers from health, education, business and voluntary, community and faith sectors.
SEED is a hub and spoke model, co-ordinated by Health Innovation North West Coast working flexibly together and reacting to challenges and opportunities.
Five year goals
- To increase funding allocations and quality research output by improving engagement between education, health and communities with the aim of increasing research and innovation funding by 20 per cent
- By improving health we aim to increase regional economic productivity by £700m per year
- By working collaboratively with education partners, SEED will increase workforce recruitment and retention in the health and care sector by 10 per cent in 10 years
Learning from COVID-19
SEED Health Alliance has been actively supporting a Covid19 Lessons Learnt project, run by UCLan. Lancashire and South Cumbria ICS have been running workshops within their cells in conjunction with Health Innovation North West Coast. These workshops have been able to give a view from the health system of what has worked during the crisis so far, and what areas need more support. The workshops with the voluntary sectors, councils and local support teams have been especially useful in highlighting the kinds of problems faced by people during the Covid19 crisis.
Key questions to address to capture success
The plan is to follow a three-step process to capture good practice.
- Identify lessons learned: What are the new opportunities seen during COVID? What are the lessons/learning that we should or could take forward to sustain progress?
- Understand enablers of success: What were the human factors, change in mind sets, ethics, and cultural conditions that helped to accelerate change?
- Futureproof: What thinking or lessons can keep us on the front foot during our post-COVID recovery process and future state? How can we provide a positive challenge to new ideas?
Initial focus
- Finding the system learning around behaviours and mind-sets; how people have worked together across organisational boundaries
- How we can improve integration and resilience across our system
- What opportunities and innovation seem useful and sustainable
- Longer term thinking about shifting focus away from hospitals
- What partners can learn for future service planning and a stronger recovery
If you would like to participate, please email info@innovationagencynwc.nhs.uk
SEED Health Alliance – the case for change
Around 1.8 million people live in Lancashire and South Cumbria. They are less healthy and live shorter lives than almost every other part of the country.
Nearly one third of people live in some of the most deprived areas of England. In some neighbourhoods, healthy life expectancy is only 46.5 years. The main causes of ill-health are cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory and mental health conditions, while suicide rates are significantly higher than the national average.
Lancashire and South Cumbria has a much higher level of need in our communities and so health organisations receive around 10 per cent more funding per person compared to the average for England. In contrast, funding for local authorities, who provide social care and public health, has decreased by 40 per cent in a decade.
Our region has high levels of economic activity and employment, but productivity is about 20 per cent lower per worker than the UK average – largely because of health. If we improve health we could improve regional productivity by up to £700m of GVA (gross value added) per year.
Recent activity
SEED have been looking at a future working model to ally health with higher education and business, in the Lancashire and South Cumbria region. In order to do this, we have been meeting to decide on some projects SEED partners can collaborate on.
SEED has supported a quality improvement initiative, through Lancashire and South Cumbria ICS. In addition, SEED has been involved with bids with System Leaders, Health Foundation and UKRI.
