Health Tech Symposium

Professor Ben Bridgewater is Chief Executive of Health Innovation Manchester, an academic health science system that brings together health, academia and industry. The mission is to accelerate innovation into practice at pace and scale, so to transform the lives of Greater Manchester’s 2.8 million citizens.

He is a leading expert on health informatics, national clinical audit, clinical governance, healthcare transparency, patient experience measurement and digital transformation in healthcare, publishing numerous high profile academic outputs and delivering innovative IT tools for disseminating clinical outcomes to professionals and the public.

Prior to joining Health Innovation Manchester, Ben worked for global technology company DXC Technology as the Director of the Healthcare and Lifesciences Global Build Advisory Team. Until January 2016, he was a cardiac surgeon at the University Hospital of South Manchester for nearly 18 years.

Ben also provided clinical leadership for the UK national cardiac audit programme, as well as leading analyses that provides UK hospital and cardiac surgery mortality rates to the public. The programme is world-leading and associated with a 50% reduction in risk-adjusted mortality over 10 years.

Sarah is a freelance legal and commercial consultant working in the health sector. After 25 years as a legal advisor to the NHS, including over 10 years within the Department of Health & Social Care, Sarah set up her own consultancy business and now divides her time between providing legal support to health sector clients and advocating for improved involvement of patients in decisions about health innovations and use of health data.

She is Deputy Chair of the Public Advisory Board of Health Data Research UK and sits on the Oversight Board for the OneLondon Health LCRE. Each of these roles bring her close to some of the most interesting and ambitious plans to improve the use of and access to NHS health data.

Sarah also works with National Voices an umbrella organisation for health and care charities and it is in this role that she produced the report “Surfacing Unmet Needs – Making Innovation Work for Everyone”. The report was commissioned by NHS England/Improvement to inform decisions made by the Accelerated Access Collaborative on which innovations to prioritise for roll out across the NHS.

John Ashcroft is Chief Executive of Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and the University Dental Hospital of Manchester and under his leadership both hospitals to receive ‘Outstanding’ ratings from the Care Quality Commission.

As the youngest Chief Executive in the NHS John has over ten years’ experience of operating at executive and board level in a range of healthcare organisations and markets in both the public and private sector both across the NHS and also internationally. John has key expertise in leadership, programme management and strategy and a particular interest in working differently with industry to address the growing demands on his hospitals services

Catherine joined MIDAS as Head of Life Science in June 2019, with responsibility for defining and implementing the inward investment strategy for Greater Manchester’s Life Science sector.

She has spent her whole career within the Life Science industry starting out as a bench scientist in academic research at the University of Manchester, before making the move to her first commercial role at Applied Biosystems (now part of Thermo Fisher Scientific). Since then she has held a number of sales and marketing positions both at large Multinationals and also at SME and start-up companies, operating internationally to grow market presence.

With more than 25 years’ experience gained across both the Vitro Diagnostic and Medical Device sectors, she has a broad-spectrum appreciation of the healthcare industry having successfully commercialised and supported the introduction of new products and technologies into the NHS and overseas markets.

Catherine holds a BSc (Hons) in Microbiology from the University of Sheffield and an MBA from Bradford University.

Saif is a GP and the primary care lead for GTD Healthcare in hours over 14 practices. He also works as Associate Medical Director for community and neighbourhoods in Tameside and Glossop ICFT. He believes that digital is a huge enabler to unleash the potential of the NHS and social care assets.

He is the Senior Responsible Office(SRO) for the GM Digital Platform (LHCRE) for Frailty and Dementia and has been working on care plans that are integrated across the health and social care system. More recently Saif has been working as the Digital lead for care homes with Health Innovation Manchester to roll out the Safe Steps Covid Tracker across care homes in GM. Saif’s key expertise is linking the clinical problems with the technical solutions with a strong emphasis on clinical leadership and being patient focussed. Saif acts as a clinical advisor to the Greater Manchester Strategic Healthcare Network for frailty as well as being the Ageing Well system lead for Tameside and Glossop.

Andrew is a successful CEO and Managing Director with extensive experience growing international technology companies. He spent many years leading complex, multi-national businesses, operating across a wide range of sectors. He specialises in the industrialisation and commercialisation of innovative technologies, business growth and turn-around.

Andrew joined The University of Manchester in mid-2016 as CEO of its subsidiary company Graphene Enabled Systems Ltd (GES). In January 2019 Andrew became CEO of The University of Manchester Innovation Factory.

Before joining GES, Andrew was Regional Managing Director of the French power equipment manufacturer Socomec SA where he led three subsidiaries covering North America and the British Isles. Prior to this, he was Sales and Marketing Director of a group business of ICI plc which manufactured a broad range of industrial and consumer products based on coated and thermally stabilised PET film.

An award winning commercial and technology lawyer specialising in the health and care sector, Charlotte advises health and care organisations on legal, commercial and strategic issues relating to commissioning, contracting and collaborating. Having worked on a range of health and social care projects from system and place based integration and provider collaboration to electronic patient record procurements and digital health platform development, Charlotte works in partnership with clients to help them to navigate complex issues in order to deliver the desired outcome.

Charlotte is an advocate for innovation and transformation in the sector and in addition to her legal role at Mills & Reeve she proudly chairs pro-Manchester’s healthcare committee and is co-vice chair of techUK’s Health and Social Care Council.

Simon is a health economist and market access specialist who leads ORCHA’s scientific research department. Working in academia, the pharmaceutical and regulatory industries, his core interests include value demonstration, return on investment, and planning routes to market.

Simon has published several studies on optimising the use of digital health technologies. He is currently finalising his PhD in medical diagnostics, acts as a subject matter expect for NHS Digital, and is a content reviewer for the NIHR.

Gareth is a practising architect and Regional Director of AHR, based in Manchester, with over 25 years’ experience in the industry. For the last 15 years, Gareth has been actively engaged in designing and leading pioneering projects within the healthcare sector, including the completion of several NHS healthcare and related projects in the UK.

Gareth’s flare for innovative thinking, coupled with his expertise in the Health and Research sectors has enabled him to progress industry-leading solutions and evolve the way in which buildings and spaces can improve clinical care. He has led specialist design teams on a wide range of projects and his solutions have seen success, not just in the UK, but right across the globe, from the 7* Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi to The Queen Mary Hospital Laboratory redevelopment Hong Kong.

Gareth understands first-hand the challenges of providing different building types in diverse cultures, all utilising different technologies. As an executive member of AfH, Gareth is keen help develop and promote more innovative, flexible and creative ways to resolve the many challenges facing Healthcare today and safeguard its future within an era of climate emergency and pandemics.

Dr Taz Aldawoud is a General Practitioner and holds an MBA with specialism in Strategic Management in Healthcare. Taz is passionate about creating a safer and more responsive healthcare system through the enabler of digital technologies within the NHS. Through his role as Director of Clinical Innovation at Local Care Direct, he pioneered the development of a national award-winning Telehealth service for NHS patients. Taz is a Clinical Board member and Chief Clinical Information Office (CCIO) for Bradford District and Craven Clinical Commissioning Group and previously worked at a national level through his role as Clinical Adviser and ‘Digital Clinical Champion’ for NHS England. Taz is also the Founder and CEO of Doc Abode (www.DocAbode.com), a digital health start-up supporting the NHS workforce of the future, delivering healthcare in innovative ways.

Steven is Head of Innovation and Science Commercialisation Policy at Greater Manchester Combined Authority. He leads policy development and implementation focused on boosting r&d and business productivity across the city-region. Steven also leads on health innovation policy, as set out in the Greater Manchester Local Industrial Strategy.

Prior to joining Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Steven has worked in local government and civil service roles focused on reform, business improvement, and economic growth.

Jamie leads the Commercial team at Alderley Park and is responsible for connecting new customers and growing existing customers with the right lab and office space.

Jamie is a Chartered Surveyor and prior to his role at Alderley Park, had worked in the North West office market for 10 years advising landlords and tenants on leasing office space and aligning real estate strategy with core business strategy.

Simon’s practice encompasses a wide range of technologies within life sciences and biotechnology, with clients ranging from large multi-nationals to universities and small spin-out companies.

Simon is particularly involved in formulating intellectual property (IP) strategies for start-ups, spin-outs and SMEs. He relishes the challenges associated with a deep dive of their business plan, budget, exit strategy, current IP position and then clearly setting out patent filing programmes to maximise and extend patent protection, ensuring trouble free product launch or licensing by undertaking freedom to operate analysis.

With previous in-house experience, Simon is able to provide an invaluable commercial perspective from which to provide clear and concise advice to his clients.

Simon’s passion for providing thorough IP information has resulted in speaker opportunities at a number of conferences both in the UK and internationally, notably presenting at the BIO International Conference in 2017.