Innovation and collaboration in NHS Wales
Health Technology Wales Health Technology Wales (HTW) was established by Ministerial recommendation in 2017 to support a strategic, national approach to the identification, appraisal, and adoption of new technologies into health and care settings. It is funded by the Welsh Government and hosted within the Velindre University NHS Trust but is independent of both.
Since being established, HTW has published 23 pieces of national guidance on health and care technologies which have the potential to impact 188,680 individuals each year in Wales. The organisation now plans to significantly increase its evidence appraisal and guidance output.
Dr Susan Myles, Director of HTW, said: “We have ambitious goals to drive improvements in population health and social care services by continuing to support the identification, appraisal and adoption of innovative health and social care technologies in Wales. “HTW continues to build on the strong progress it has made since 2017 and its partnerships with stakeholders across the health and social care sectors.” Throughout 2021 HTW, continued to assess non-medicine health and care technologies and issued six pieces of national guidance, while also supporting Welsh Government in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was appointed a Collaborating Partner of the Wales COVID-19 Evidence Centre in March 2021 and since then has carried out a series of rapid evidence reviews and summaries on COVID-19 related topics that supported - policy decisionmaking during the pandemic. Having set up a new working partnership with Social Care Wales in 2021, HTW has been working to better support the social care sector in Wales. Last year it published its first piece of
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social care guidance on START – a programme to support carers of those with dementia. HTW continues to focus efforts on finding technologies to support the social care sector and launched its first social care topic call in March 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a rapid acceleration in the adoption of digital technology within the health and care sectors in Wales. In response to this growing demand HTW will launch a digital topic call in 2022. While its core work continues to focus on health technology assessment, in 2021 HTW commenced a pilot to audit the adoption of its guidance across Wales. This exercise will now be completed on an annual basis. HTW continues to engage with stakeholders, both in the UK and globally, collaborating with international partners to create position statements for the International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment (INAHTA).
Meanwhile HTW always strives to ensure that patient groups and those receiving and using care services are involved in the health technology assessment process through patient and public involvement (PPI) work.
“Our vision is to continue to develop a world-class HTA organisation that ensures that health technologies which have the most potential to improve the health and care of people and offer the greatest value are recognised and adopted in Wales. We look forward to continuing to work with our partners across the health and care sectors in 2022.”
Professor Peter Groves Chair Health Technology Wales
www.healthtechnology.wales
