HIRANI, along with partners ABPI and NICON recently hosted a webinar looking at a health and economy partnership for Northern Ireland.
Some of the items discussed included how Northern Ireland needs a cross-government mandate to form a health-economy partnership.
Also discussed was the need for the appointment of a Health Innovation lead in NI and funding for ring-fenced Project managers, who can work with clinical teams for short periods to develop business cases to engage the ecosystem, for example to bid for external funding, manage collaborations and prioritise health and social care needs for innovation.
It was also agreed that legislation needs to be passed to unlock health data for wider use (currently it is only available for academic researchers through the honest broker service) as Northern Ireland is behind the rest of the UK and most modern economies in this regard and needs to be unlocked to match the ambition of the sector.