AbbVie 2017 National Sustainable NHS Award Winners Unveiled

MAIDENHEAD, UK, For Immediate Release, November, 28, 2017 – AbbVie, a global biopharmaceutical company, today announced the winners of its 2017 Sustainable Healthcare ‘Patients as Partners’ Awards. All winners and finalists were recognised for outstanding efforts to implement innovative and sustainable solutions within areas of unmet need within their Trusts; going above and beyond to provide the best possible care for patients. 

The awards recognise the work of:

• The Salford Royal/ University of Manchester team in the ‘Enabling Patients with Technology’ category - for their work in the Manchester’s Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) monitoring study coordinated by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). The study supports RA patients in monitoring their own condition via a mobile phone app and provides real time data for doctors which improves diagnosis and treatment decisions, while being time efficient, cost effective, easy for patients to use and very easy and cheap to spread.
• The National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society (NASS) for its outstanding achievements in the ‘Supporting Individuals to Take Control of their Care’ category – for the setup of a cost effective, volunteer-led service that provides physical and mental health needs to patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS). The programme has reported a large reduction in the number of recurring visits from patients to their GP and A&E following early referral to NASS branches.
• Theresa Richards, Macmillan Lead End of Life Care Plan Facilitator and Bevan Commission Innovation Exemplar from Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board in North Wales, in the ‘Bevan Commission Prudent Healthcare Award’ category, for the teams work in facilitating the setup of an exceptional palliative and end of life education programme in local care homes in Wales. 
• The Western and Northern Health & Social Care Trusts (HSCT) for their accomplishments in the ‘Making Health and Social Care Patient friendly‘ category for their joint work on their ‘Medicines Optimisation in Older People’ programme. By joining up care this project , which has already been rolled out to all five Health Trusts in Northern Ireland, has had a dramatically positive impact on the lives older people including a 14 per cent drop in inappropriate presentations to A&E and a decrease in adverse drug events. Cost saving on medicines of £141-180 per patients could see an estimated £41-52 million saving if spread to all care homes in England and Wales.

As winners of these awards, each team will receive a bursary of up to £3000 to spend on research to grow their own experiences and share best practice that will benefit patients and/or the NHS. The awards were announced at a national healthcare conference at the King’s Fund in London, focusing on how proven innovation can be spread across the NHS more quickly. 

Jerome Bouyer, UK General Manager, AbbVie commented: “The AbbVie Sustainable Healthcare Initiative develops ways to achieve better healthcare outcomes and experience for people living with long-term conditions while also making best use of limited resources. Whatever we at AbbVie can do to identify and support those who are providing great public services that allow system efficiencies is, we hope, a useful contribution.” 

Further information on each of the winning projects is available through our communications department. 

-Ends - 

Notes to editors 

About the awards 

The panel of judges assembled by AbbVie was looking for outstanding examples of improvement and innovation that demonstrates clear benefits to the lives of patients to make our health service more sustainable. There are three award categories which are listed below: 

• Supporting individuals to take control of their care - this award focuses on initiatives that can enable people to take a new approach to their care and wellbeing by really taking control 
• Enabling patients with technology - this category recognises and celebrates the very best example of technology that empowers and puts patients at the centre of their health and wellbeing 
• Making health and social care patient friendly - this is awarded to the best team of organisations and partners that join up health and social care, centering it around the patient and their needs 
• In 2017 we added The Prudent Healthcare Award, in partnership with the Bevan Commission - designed to recognise the exceptional work being carried out specifically in Wales.

The awards are designed for people who are responsible for developing and running initiatives relevant to one of the categories across the whole of the NHS in UK. Healthcare professionals, healthcare organisations and patient groups were invited to enter.

AXABV171700 Date of prep: November 2017