Shelford Group Managing Director Will Warburton introduces our 2024 Impact Report, looking back on the achievements of the Shelford Group over the last year…
We’re publishing this year’s Shelford Group Impact Report at a time of significant pressure for both our members and the wider NHS. In common with most international health systems, the NHS must adapt to meet the changing needs of an ageing population. The shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic and cost of living crisis have had far-reaching impacts on health and public finances. Gains in performance have been hard yards, in the face of tightening constraints on investment, and escalating industrial unrest. In this context, our role as centres of innovation is as vital as ever.
As a collaborative of ten major research and teaching trusts, we are small enough to be coherent and agile as a group, but collectively large enough to matter to the national response to these challenges. Our unique capabilities lie in convening academic and industry partnerships that can drive transformative advances in the prevention and treatment of disease, to the benefit of patients and the whole NHS. To take but two examples, in the past year Shelford-based clinical academics have developed gene editing therapies with the potential to cure inherited blood disorders and conducted trials of treatments for cervical cancer that improve 5-year survival and mortality rates by 35%.
Over the past year, we have continued to nurture the Shelford leadership community, enabling benchmarking, regular dialogue, and peer learning within professional groups. We have made links across disciplines to address complex problems like productivity, specialised care, inequalities in care and environmental sustainability. We have also built strong working relationships with those who shape the context we work in – government, opposition parties, DHSC, NHS England, Royal Colleges, membership bodies, think tanks, and industry associations. As system leaders, we have used our collective voice to call publicly for resolution of industrial action. We have developed existing offers, such as the Safer Nursing Care Tool, and created new ones, such as our best practice guide for clinical trial set up, co-developed with academic and industry partners.
This Impact Report examines our work over the last year in more detail, and reflects on how we have been using our collective capacity and influence to make a real difference to people’s health, to patient experience and outcomes, and to system sustainability. We hope that it demonstrates to both our members and our partners that we can continue to collectively rise to the challenges the future holds.