Last December, Curia’s Health, Care and Life Sciences Research Group, in partnership with Revvity, launched its report into life sciences and diagnostics.
The report Transforming Care, Saving Lives: Revitalising UK Life Sciences and Diagnostics brought together leading experts from industry, academia, and the NHS to look at ways in which the sector can innovate and transform to improve patient outcomes.
At the event in Portcullis House, the audience heard speeches alongside a panel discussion that shed light on the transformative potential that better collaboration, innovation, and regulation can have on healthcare. These themes underlined the collective efforts required to shape a health system that not only meets current challenges but also anticipates future needs.
Our speakers and panellists included:
- Simon Opher MP, Member of Parliament for Stroud (host)
- Andrew Gwynne MP, former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Prevention, Department of Health and Social Care
- Professor Lucy Chappell, Chief Scientific Adviser, Department of Health and Social Care
- Professor Sir Stephen Powis, Medical Director, NHS England
- Dame Lyn Chitty, Deputy Director of the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust Biomedical Research Centre
- Helen Dent, CEO, BIVDA
- Professor Sir Mike Richards, CBE MD, DSc, FRCP, Chair, UK National Screening Committee
- Dr Stuart Adams, Honorary Associate Professor at UCL and Consultant Clinical Scientist at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust
- Dr Richard Scott, CEO of Genomics England
- Martin Keil, Vice President and General Manager Europe Commercial, Revvity
Collaboration: A pillar of healthcare progress
The recurring emphasis on collaboration highlights its critical role in advancing outcomes across life science and healthcare sectors. Across various speeches, leaders praised the UK’s ability to unite academia, the NHS, industry, and charity sectors to drive innovation and improve patient outcomes.
Sir Stephen Powis, Medical Director of the NHS, argued how on this front, the UK is a world leader, saying: “It does have the ability that other health systems don’t have – to come together as one very large health system and act collectively.”
In his speech, Powis gave examples of some of the ways in which this takes effect, showcasing programs such as the NHS Innovation Accelerator and Clinical Entrepreneur Program, which nurture small enterprises and startups to develop groundbreaking solutions.
However, there were many calls at the event for collaboration to go further to improve outcomes and create greater efficiency in the system. During the panel, Sir Mike Richards, Chair of the UK National Screening Committee, urged researchers to work more with the regulators, saying: “One of the ways we’re doing that is for the screening committee to work closely with researchers and say, is the research going to answer the sort of questions that the screening committee is going to want to have?
“Because what you don’t want is to do a research study and then say, oh damn, we haven’t answered the questions we need. So, we are working really hard on that”, he added.
Innovation: Transforming healthcare delivery
Innovation emerged as a central theme, with discussions spanning cutting-edge technologies like AI, genomics, and digital health tools. Leaders expressed optimism about the NHS’s capacity to integrate these advancements into everyday healthcare.
AI was frequently spotlighted for its potential to enhance productivity and patient outcomes. Andrew Gwynne MP, former Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Public Health and Prevention, described his experience with AI assisting with a mock consultation, recalled: “I had the privilege on Sunday of visiting Great Ormond Street Hospital, and I had a mock consultation where we talked about football and politics and my family. And the AI automatically dumped all the irrelevant rubbish stuff about football and politics and my family and picked out all the stuff about my health that I chatted about with the consultant.
It wrote the consultant’s notes, and they were perfect, and sent me a letter, probably before Id left the hospital, outlining not only what the consultation was about and what was found and what the doctor’s opinion was, but also the date for my next appointment.”
“It is literally science fiction becoming science fact,” he remarked, emphasising how such technologies have the potential to revolutionise healthcare delivery.
However, the use of AI was cautioned as needing the right regulatory framework to go alongside it. During our panel, Sir Mike Richards argued how AI needs to be trained to work effectively across diverse populations to be able to take account of people’s different ethnicity or body type.
Richard Scott of Genomics England also stressed the importance of an AI regulatory framework, emphasising the need to protect patients’ data when AI learns of data sets.
Diagnostics: Enabling earlier and accurate healthcare interventions
Diagnostics took centre stage as a critical area for enhancing healthcare outcomes. Speakers emphasised the importance of diagnostic tools to facilitate early detection and intervention, which can significantly improve patient outcomes.
Screening programs in particular were highlighted as an important tool in improving diagnostics in the UK. Richards noted how offering targeted screening is working to diagnose people earlier; he pointed to the success of the Targeted Lung Check for those with a history of smoking, as well as the Jewish BRCA testing program. Alongside targeted screening, Richards also advocated for trials regarding widening participation in other screening programs, such as the Breast Screening Programme.
Richards pointed out that currently, the proportion of cancers diagnosed by screening is low, but with improvements to these screening programs, it could rise, saying: “The answer is actually a surprisingly small number. It’s 5 or 6 per cent. But I believe that we’ve got the possibility of really increasing that to 10 per cent, 15 per cent.”
This rise in diagnosis via screening is beneficial for both patients and the NHS, ensuring that a patient can receive a diagnosis quicker and through a less invasive process, which in turn, reduces the burden on the NHS.
Putting patients first: Building trust and participation in healthcare
A more patient-first approach was a theme that was spoken about throughout the event. In his speech, Andrew Gwynne MP spoke of Labour’s 10-year mission for the NHS. A key part of it was a pledge to not only reduce health inequalities in the UK, but to move to a more preventive approach to healthcare. Gwynne highlighted the importance of this, telling the audience that 40 per cent of NHS spending was on illness that could be prevented.
Gwynne also promoted a shift towards more localised healthcare, saying: “Firstly, from hospital to community, there is so much more that can be done within a community setting, or even, dare I say it, in the home setting, that needn’t be done in hospitals.
“Now, of course, there will always be a need for specialisms, there will always be a need for emergency healthcare, and there will always be a need for hospitals. But still, in our healthcare system, far too much is currently being done in hospitals that could be done in other more convenient settings.”
Following on from this patient-first theme, there was consistent reference to how to make healthcare more user-friendly for patients. Lucy Chappell, the Chief Scientific Advisor and CEO of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), gave examples of how the NIHR is working to invest in medical devices, such as wearables, so patients can better track their health and speed up diagnostics.
Simplifying processes, such as switching to user-friendly screening tests, was also cited as an effective strategy. For instance, replacing the faecal occult blood test with a single-sample FIT test increased participation by 10 per cent.
Another topic discussed by the panel was how to better gain public approval for sharing and use of their data. Richard Scott of Genomics England gave a successful case study on how the NHS can better do this, saying: “I think the NHS Change Programme is a key example of public engagement on the shift in general. That includes a shift in how our data is used and held, and we need to do that.
“We found with our work, data is at the heart of it. Before we design programs and, actually, our newborn genomes programme, a really big component of it is engagement – about people, people’s attitudes to it, both on the acceptability of joining a program and also looking to the future and saying ‘What would the models be that you’re comfortable with?’ It’s not just, ‘How do we influence the public?’ it’s the public also influencing and helping design the system.”
Final Thought
The launch event for Curia’s parliamentary report showcased some of the big achievements and successes of the life science industry, not just in innovation, but in securing better patient outcomes.
The speakers and experts at the event celebrated how the UK is one of the best in the world in how it supports the industry with its framework and operating model. A key theme of the evening was how this could be harnessed further to revitalise the industry as well as the NHS.
For this to happen, the Government must take on board the key concerns of the industry and healthcare experts, namely, to reduce regulatory hurdles, foster better collaboration not only within the industry but also data sharing within NHS Trusts and, finally, to promote a greater shift to preventive healthcare and earlier diagnostics to reduce pressure on the NHS as well as improve patient outcomes.
In doing this, the Labour Government can not only fulfil its 10-year plan for the NHS but achieve economic growth alongside saving lives.
To watch the videos, please visit: https://youtu.be/AqZi7lzX_uE
