How a hospital can play a critical part in our economic recovery
The importance of NHS has been highlighted through 2020 now chief executive of Leeds Teaching Hospital looks at what’s next.
“I think about how big an employer we are in Leeds”, Julian Hartley, chief executive of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust stated. “We employ over 18,000 staff [and] spend £1.2bn a year providing healthcare for the people of Leeds, West Yorkshire and the whole of the north of England for our specialist services.”
Hartley was speaking to Edward Ziff OBE the chairman and CEO of Town Centre Securities plc, in his capacity as chair of the Leeds Hospitals Charity, at the latest Virtual Breakfast Club organised by UK Israel Business North East. The conversation started with the journey the hospital has been on since he joined and took in the challenges of the last 12 months, but it was his comments on the Trusts role as an “anchor institution” which can support the city’s economic future which was fascinating.
“We can be an anchor institution in the city but also a catalyst for medical technology innovation, health technology, pharmaceutical development, there’s a whole range of opportunities.
“I think one of the growth areas of the economy certainly in this country is health tech. And on all fronts, I think there’s some potential for us to team clinical academics with entrepreneurs and to develop things like remote monitoring.”
Hartley explained that due to the challenges created in the NHS as a result of the Covid-19 crisis over the last 12 months he’s seen an acceleration in certain areas. However, he would like Leeds and the Trust to continue to develop such initiatives while looking to the horizon and asking “what is healthcare of the 22nd Century going to look like and how do we start to think through that now.”
He added that he sees a real opportunity for the Trust, which will include a state-of-the-art children’s hospital and adult hospital, in supporting business start-ups and co-locating them with the teaching hospital and university in order to further contribute to the economy.
Of the new hospitals he added: “We want those hospitals to be digital by design and we want them to be the best they can be in terms of innovation and latest thinking. I think our entrepreneurs and our innovators can really help us with that.”
He also linked in the ongoing work that is being done in Leeds and the wider city region with regards to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Regional Entrepreneurial Accelerator Programme (MIT REAP) initiative. “MIT brings a world class kind of understanding of how you bring together the ingredients [innovators, hospitals etc] and make it happen.”
The opportunity which Hartley talks about makes perfect sense and with Leeds city region being home to four out of five NHS national offices and what the LEP describes as an “unrivalled health ecosystem” that includes the largest concentration of medical device companies in the UK, it feels that the chief executive is right that not only has the hospital and the NHS played a critical role in keeping us healthy over the last 12 months but it will play a pivotal role in our economic recovery from Covid too.
UK Israel Business North East is one of the channel partners for the upcoming virtual conference Invest North, which will feature business and policy leaders from across the Northern Powerhouse and aims to set the agenda for what comes next in the North
UK Israel Business North East, chaired by Colin Glass OBE , is a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to encourage and facilitate bilateral trade between the UK and Israel, and especially in Yorkshire and the North East, a mission becoming increasingly important following Brexit.
