Build a skilled and resilient workforce

As reflected in the 2021 Elective Care Framework, investing in a skilled and well-resourced workforce is critical to delivering a health and care service ‘fit for all’. Investing in life sciences skills development to build Northern Ireland’s clinical research and biomedical innovation capability is equally important to create an interconnected health and life sciences ecosystem that will improve both population health and economic growth.

To do this, the next Northern Ireland Assembly should:

Focus on local strengths and skills attainment particularly in diagnostics, big data, clinical trials, data analytics.

Re-evaluate the findings of the 2015 Matrix NI Life & Health Sciences Capability Assessment & Foresight Report to address current skill deficits and future-proof the life sciences workforce.

Invest in training in research across health and social care, and introduce programmes to encourage peer networks of research-active healthcare professionals.

Create a central programme of global development opportunities to attract and retain emerging and established life sciences leaders.

Adopt innovative solutions to reduce patient waiting lists

Northern Ireland’s patient waiting lists were already unacceptably long in many areas before the pandemic, and the problem has exacerbated over the last two years.

New thinking is required to tackle backlogs in screening, diagnosis and care so that patients rapidly get the treatments they need and participation in clinical research is increased. The life sciences sector is well placed to support innovative, cross-sector approaches to reducing waiting lists.

ABPI member companies have pioneered care pathway transformation and have extensive experience of supporting pilot schemes to alleviate capacity issues, increase resource and introduce efficiencies in healthcare systems across the UK.

The next Northern Ireland Assembly should:

Actively encourage the health and care system to adopt a cross-sector approach to reducing patient waiting lists, taking advantage of innovative solutions developed in partnership with industry elsewhere in the UK such mobile screening, delivering home-based treatments and redesigning care pathways.

Ensure that the role of innovative medicines in preventing or slowing disease progression is recognised and supported alongside health promotion and disease prevention in plans to improve the health of the population.

Increase investment in clinical research

Clinical research is essential to the development of new medicines and vaccines, bringing benefits to patients, Health and Social Care and the economy. £1 of public funds invested in research brings a return of £4.14.⁴

Yet Northern Ireland invests just £8 per capita from public funds into research every year - about half as much as the rest of the UK. leaders must reduce this imbalance as a priority to attract and retain Northern Ireland’s brilliant clinical academics and life sciences leaders, many of whom have already delivered world-leading breakthroughs.

The next Northern Ireland Assembly should:

• Increase investment in clinical research to a level of parity with other UK nations as a priority.
• Ensure that health and social care research capacity is protected and developed as part of overall workforce planning, to avoid trials having to being halted due to care pressures.
• Encourage Trusts to develop new approaches with industry to improve inclusivity and diversity in clinical research participation, such as homebased trial delivery, data gathering and monitoring.
• Continue to support the Department of Health in delivering on the commitments of the UK-wide vision for clinical research delivery.

Building public trust in the benefits of sharing health data

Analysing health data has the potential to transform the way disease is treated and diagnosed, but the right infrastructure is needed to make this a reality. The information collected by HSC – on family and medical history from birth, primary and secondary care, treatment responses and outcomes – already has the potential to help understand, predict, prevent and treat diseases.

When digitised through the £300m Encompass programme, these data assets also have the potential to identify behavioural risk factors and target areas of high health inequalities. The ability to track outcomes and optimise patient care is essential if we are to create a sustainable, innovative healthcare system in NI.

Industry can help with this process. ABPI members excel in developing and utilising data analytic tools with the capability to capture, interrogate, analyse and standardise data. The next NI Assembly should therefore:

• Allocate dedicated funding to the digitisation of the health service as a priority of equal importance to waiting list reductions and workforce capacity building.
• Create a cross-sector health data steering group with the Digital HSC Team to build public trust in use of health data for research purposes .
• Develop regulations emerging from the 2016 Health and Social Care (Control of Data Processing) Bill to facilitate secondary use of health data. This will facilitate effective planning of services, improvements in diagnosis and treatment, and evaluation of the impact of health and care transformation.