A collaboration between the NHS, universities and industry partners has been launched to co-create NHS Scotland’s transformation.

NHS Golden Jubilee’s National Centre for Sustainable Delivery, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, University of Glasgow, AstraZeneca UK and Lenus Health have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to improve several areas of Scottish healthcare.

The partners will boost services through a set of large-scale programmes to improve the health of the population and expand clinical research.

An important focus will be addressing the deliverance of NHS transformation by testing new patient pathways/digital technologies to enable earlier diagnosis and treatment.

Additionally, they aim to enable large-scale clinical trials and studies, collect evidence to assess the effectiveness of these new clinical management pathways and scale up to spread across NHS Scotland.

The partnership could change clinical practice, the partners said, improve patient outcomes and reduce waiting times.

According to the group, an initial focus is on long-term conditions and priorities set by the Scottish Government.

Expansion of clinical research will promote the profile of Scotland and change clinical practice around the world.

Close collaboration between the NHS, university and industry partners will also create many opportunities to expand the Scottish economy, the partners said.

The ambition is that patients throughout Scotland with all chronic diseases will be offered enrolment in studies and trials of new pathways and therapies.

Professor Jann Gardner, Chief Executive of NHS Golden Jubilee, said: “The National Centre for Sustainable Delivery at NHS Golden Jubilee has been set up specifically to renew and transform healthcare services across NHS Scotland and is uniquely positioned to deliver transformation programmes at scale through the Accelerated National Innovation Adoption pathway.

“This collaboration provides opportunities to improve patient care, employ new technologies and medicines, while addressing the impact of health inequalities and social barriers to provide a more sustainable future healthcare system.”

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The first project being considered for rollout across NHS Scotland is the Optimised Pathway for Early Identification of Heart Failure in the Community (OPERA) – a collaboration between AstraZeneca UK, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, University of Glasgow, Lenus Health and West of Scotland Innovation teams.

Patients attended a single clinic appointment to undergo a bank of tests including electrocardiogram heart tracing, echocardiogram ultrasound heart scan and blood-based biomarkers.

During the pilot, the waiting list for heart failure diagnostic tests was reduced from over 12 months to just six weeks.

Professor Julie Brittenden, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s Director of Research and Innovation said: “We are already seeing great success in our Covid recovery, with a growth in the number of transformative studies involving novel medicines, devices, digital enabled technologies, and artificial intelligence.

“This collaboration further adds to the opportunity to undertake high quality research and innovation projects such as OPERA, which will directly impact on and improve patient-centred care.”

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