Introduction
We have had a busy start to 2026 with the successful delivery of many of our funded research and training initiatives whilst planning upcoming events. The NortHFutures teams have been carefully documenting their work for sharing practical insights from our community-centred approach to digital health innovation, and for identifying what holds value for people living and working in our North East and North Cumbria (NENC) region.
We are also delighted to welcome new Hub Co-Managers joining the team this month at Newcastle University: Katie French, who has worked with David Kirk (NortHFutures Skills and Training lead) and myself, as Research Project Coordinator for the EPSRC-funded Centre for Digital Citizens; and Ruth Wilson, who previously worked at the NIHR Innovation Observatory. A warm welcome to you both.
We’re excited about the NortHFutures Public Showcase taking place in June because it will provide a great opportunity for those funded through the hub to talk about their work, with people in the hub network and with members of the public.
It feels important for this Showcase event to connect with the lively national debates on digital transformation in health and care, and to communicate the evidenced health and care needs in our region that frame pressing design challenges for improving service provision and community support.
I look forward to the opportunity for us all to meet in person next month, and to discuss together how we build supportive northern health futures.
— Prof. Abi Durrant, Director of NortHFutures
Digital Health Symposium: Future Ready for Tomorrow’s NHS
The Training and Skills team at NortHFutures were delighted to partner with NHS England Education North East and Health Data Research (HDR) UK on another edition of the Digital Health Symposium, which took place on 13th March 2026 at The Catalyst on Newcastle Helix.
This event brought together diverse professional perspectives from across different sectors of work, including Health and Care, Further and Higher Education, industry and Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE).
NHS workforce, trainee doctors and allied health professionals were well-represented at the event, joining attendees from universities and colleges, local companies and VCSE organisations. This diversity feels crucial for the rich discussions on Digital Health that this forum is valued for.
Please see our blog post with our reflections on the event here.
NortHFutures Public Showcase Event – June 11th 2026
Over the last two years, NortHFutures has funded people to lead collaborative research projects and novel training initiatives in Digital Health. On 11th June these teams will present their activities and outcomes at a Public Showcase event, which is free to all and takes place at the USB – a fully accessible venue. Food and refreshments will be provided.
Featuring invited talks and an interactive exhibition, the Showcase will also provide an opportunity to connect with our hub partners and with digital health innovation initiatives within and beyond the region.
We welcome helpful feedback and conversation around the presented work from the public and community leaders that will inform future bids for funding and investment. The event also provides a forum for highlighting the unmet health and care needs and challenges that we must address and act upon.
Putting this together is a big team effort and we thank our contributors and partners for your support with the day. We also thank Roots and Wings for their support with event production.
Rapid Evidence Synthesis for NHS Fit for the Future Challenge
Over the last eight months, NortHFutures worked in partnership with the other four Digital Health Hubs funded by UKRI/EPSRC on a new collaborative piece of work to deliver a rapid evidence synthesis exploring strategic innovation pathways to address challenges that the NHS faces around hospital readmission to inform strategic investment planning.
This work was commissioned as part of the Building an NHS Fit for the Future challenge, UKRI’s Research and Development Missions Accelerator Programme tasked the five UK Digital Health Hubs to identify opportunities for technology innovations to reduce time spent in acute care for people with dementia and cardiometabolic diseases – two priority clinical areas for the NHS.
This brief was motivated by two strategic shifts in the NHS England 10 Year Health Plan around moving care from hospitals to the community and leveraging digital technologies to improve health and care outcomes. A key question we addressed was: How could digital technology reduce time in acute care settings for people with dementia and cardiometabolic diseases?
The evidence synthesis involved desk-based review work plus stakeholder engagement. Our approach was participatory, focusing on the unmet needs of people who may be end users of health-tech innovations. We worked with stakeholders throughout, in advisory group meetings, co-design workshops, stakeholder consultations, and expert reviews of our findings.
Our NortHFutures team was able to demonstrate the power of our consortium by effectively engaging senior methodologists who are expert in doing this kind of evidence gathering and horizon scanning – to understand new and near future technologies. We led the work in the Dementia context, connecting our core partners NIHR HealthTech Research Centre and NIHR Applied Research Collaboration NENC, plus dementia experts working at NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. We were also very grateful to our Hub VCSE partner Equal Arts who helpfully facilitated a consultation about the review findings with people living with dementia and their carers.
Our report and policy briefing for UKRI showed how care must be taken to ensure that digital tools and interventions do not exacerbate inequalities, burden users, or create new barriers to access. Success of digital health innovations depends upon investment in trustworthy, explainable technologies, meaningful user involvement, clinical engagement, workforce readiness, and system-level investment.
NortHFutures trial networking tool Meetr with NHSA at North of England event
On May 15th the Academy of Medical Sciences launched their North of England Cross-Sector Hub in collaboration with NortHFutures' partner the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) at a day-long event held at Newcastle University.
The NortHFutures team were pleased to be able to support this regional healthcare technologies networking activity by trialling our Meetr technology. Meetr has been designed as a lightweight, web-based platform for supporting in person networking. It helps people at the event identify other attendees who share common interests, brokers an introduction and seamlessly supports the exchange of contact details when you’ve met in person. Meetr was enthusiastically used during the event and allowed us to help the organisers understand and visualise the patterns of cross-sector connections being made during the day.
Summer Black Internship Programme
After the success of last year’s programme, NortHFutures is once again funding 5 interns through HDR UK’s Black Internship programme. This offers Black students and graduates the opportunity to work on practical, real-world health data projects in organisations that are working at the forefront of healthcare and data science.
Starting in June 2026, the NortHFutures interns will be hosted at St Oswald’s Hospice, University Hospital Tees, Teesside University, Newcastle City Council, and Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, gaining hands-on experience working on a range of health data science projects.
Innovation Sprint – Creative Design for Mental Health
NortHFutures and Sunderland Software City are partnering on a creative Innovation Sprint. This 3-day event will take place at Hope Street Xchange, Sunderland, between 30 June and 2 July, aiming to engage postgraduate students and early career researchers — to work creatively with healthcare experts, gain design work experience, and shape the future of digital mental health.
The Sprint considers creative design approaches to envisioning the future of mental health and care services for children and young people in our region, working with our Hub Partners.
All disciplines welcome!
If you’d like to get in touch about any of our hub work, please contact Hub Managers Katie and Ruth at: northfutures.admin@newcastle.ac.uk.