Foreword Making an impact The past year was the start of an exciting new period for the AHSN Network, in particular as it markedthe first year of our new five-year licence from NHS England. We have assumed a more central role in the adoption and spread of innovative products and services across the NHS, while continuing to support our local innovators, SMEs and larger corporates to pitch their products in ways that are most likely to achieve success. Reflecting at the end of my first year as Chief Executive of Eastern AHSN, we have made a solid start to delivering the national AHSN Network programmes, which support the NHS across core areas of health and care. We have had success rolling out proven combinations of technology and service redesign that are making a real difference to patients’ lives. These include reducing potentially life-threatening medication errors after patients are discharged from hospital, detecting and treating atrial fibrillation, and reducing the risk of babies developing cerebral palsy. Elizabeth and I hope you will enjoy reading more about the impact of these programmes and many more in this summary of our impact for the 12 months ending March 2019. Our most important role at Eastern AHSN is to act as a supportive partner and collaborator to our local NHS and the extraordinary ecosystem of universities, healthcare, life sciences and technology companies that surround us in our region. This is why we have given over the majority of this impact report to stories authored by the innovators, patients and care professionals across the region who have collaborated with us in the past year. Today’s challenges in health, care and technology require partnership working at every level. We are proud of our collective achievements in these programmes, where we have used our privileged role to convene various parts of the NHS, industry and the wider public sector to develop their ideas and deliver benefits for patients and our NHS. Looking forward, we want to broaden and deepen our collaborations and partnerships so that we can increase our impact. We have made a good start to 2019 with some exciting new collaborations and welcoming some great new people to our team. We hope you enjoy reading the stories featured in this report. We look forward to working with many of you to build on these successes and further our purpose to turn great ideas into positive health impact. Piers and Elisabeth Piers Ricketts Elisabeth Buggins Chief Executive Chair