The Dragon’s Heart Institute is delighted to introduce the new innovation team for Cardiff and Vale UHB, who will be a dedicated single point of contact for members of staff across the system with innovative ideas, services or products.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Health Board was fortunate to have teams in all departments and directorates work in innovative new ways to solve the unprecedented challenges we faced. Now, as we look to recover from the impact of the pandemic, it is innovation which will allow us to do so and continue to improve services for future generations.
Working alongside the existing Innovation Multidisciplinary Team led by Prof Jared Torkington as well as external partners such as Cardiff University and Life Sciences Hub Wales, the Innovation Team at the Dragon’s Heart Institute has been established to allow staff to continue to innovate in their practice long after the COVID-19 pandemic ends.
Led by Mark Briggs, the UHB’s new Assistant Director of Innovation and Huw Griffiths, a Service Improvement Manager in Improvement and Implementation, the Innovation team will assist staff with progressing their work from ideas to fully embedded services or products, identifying potential funding opportunities, and linking with partner organisations across the public sector and industry.
Mark has a strong track record in the field of innovation. With a non-clinical but scientific background, he has spent most of his career in life sciences research and development, and Innovation. Here he contributed to and led the development of tools and systems used within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors, many aspects of which have a crossover into the healthcare. As such, he has a deep understanding of product, system and service solution development, intellectual property protection, commercialisation and life-cycle management.
Huw re-joined Cardiff and Vale UHB from Improvement Cymru, where he worked on national improvement projects, prior to this he worked as a physiotherapist in the Health Board for 10 years so understands the both the complexity of the system and the barriers clinical and frontline staff can face when trying to improve their practice.
Mark said, “I am delighted to launch this new Innovation Team, which I hope will be of great use to the staff at Cardiff and Vale UHB, and of great benefit to the people who we serve as we bring more and more remarkable innovative ways of delivering great care online. No matter who you are, or where you work in the organisation, if you would like help and advice with an idea, please contact us; we cannot wait to hear from you.”
Len Richards, Chief Executive of Cardiff and Vale UHB and Innovation Lead for NHS Wales, said, “I am so proud of the incredibly strong track record that we have in Cardiff and Vale for excellent innovation. However, we are aware that there are many members of staff in our system with great ideas who do not know where to turn in order to progress them. It is my hope that the Dragon’s Heart Institute’s Innovation Team will go a long way to remedy this and we will soon see more and more innovation come to the fore rather than have staff abandon their ideas when faced with seemingly insurmountable barriers. It is excellent work, which I will follow closely.”
To get a baseline understanding of the organisation’s understanding and opinion of innovation in Cardiff and Vale, the team would be very grateful if staff would take a few minutes to complete this short survey.
If you would like to contact the Innovation Team, please email cav.innovation@wales.nhs.uk
