Graphnet Health was delighted to attend NHS ConfedExpo in Manchester from 11-12 June this year. Attracting over 5,400 delegates across two days, this event aims to share learning and best practice, encourage innovation, and provide valuable networking opportunities.

We enjoyed seeing several of our customers on stage, including Rowan Pritchard Jones, Lucy Malcolm and Dianne Green from Cheshire & Merseyside who were on for 40 minutes in the Population Health Theatre. They shared how the ICB identified and supported people with respiratory illness who were living in fuel poverty over winter.

Dr Priya Kumar, GP Partner and Health Inequalities Lead at Kumar Medical Centre, Slough, Transformational Digital Clinical Lead for Connected Care, Frimley ICB, was also on stage to discuss her innovative population health led work with communities in Slough. 

Matthew Taylor explains why preventative care is non-negotiable.

Confed kicked off with a speech from Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation. Naturally, the election featured heavily. Matthew mentioned several things that the NHS Confederation will be demanding from the new government on behalf of its members. Amongst them were:

Action to fulfil the long-held vision of a health service that invests better upstream in prevention, in primary and in community-based care.

A cross-governmental action plan to improve the nation’s health, recognising the importance of social determinants and of health promotion and prevention beyond the NHS.

Matthew also talked about the importance of a decisive move to proactive health. He explained that if we don’t move away from a primarily reactive model:

“…. this is the danger we see unfolding before us: a vicious cycle of higher sickness, lower growth and an NHS stuck in perpetual crisis management.”

It is a sentiment that we certainly agree with here at Graphnet Health. The rich insights provided by our population health system, PHITA, allow health and care providers to adopt a left shift approach, identifying patients in need at an earlier stage, enabling earlier interventions and keeping hospital stays to an absolute minimum. It saves time, money and - most importantly – keeps our populations healthier.

Matthew gave a nod to the use of data-led population health management in his speech, particularly in primary care, saying:

“We are starting to appreciate the full potential of general practice and wider primary care in terms of data-driven population health management, holistic care and prevention, digital access and virtual care.”

You can read Matthew’s full speech here.

All go at Graphnet’s stand with population health a hot topic.

We had a stand at Confed this year and were blown away by the number of people that dropped by to see us – more than a few of us had lost our voices by the end!

The Graphnet team were kept busy giving demos, discussing use cases, and explaining our solutions. There was a lot of interest in PHITA, our unique end-to-end population health system. An evolution of the successful CIPHA programme that was originally funded by NHSX, it provides benefits to the NHS and acute care by reducing waiting lists, freeing up beds and keeping people safe and comfortable in their own homes. 

It also helps tackle the biggest societal challenges, such as fuel poverty, diabetes, and frailty, by providing intelligence, which transforms outcomes for the entire population.

As at Digital Health Rewired, we have noticed a real surge in discussions and activity around data-led population health management, which bodes well for the coming months and years. 

Next year 

We’re already looking forward to attending ConfedExpo again in 2025. Keep an eye on our website and social media channels for further details on this and other events we have planned over the coming months.