The Leeds Digital Festival has established itself one of the largest tech events of its kind in the UK and this year’s celebration was the biggest and best yet.
Inhealthcare shared the stage with Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, the innovation arm of the NHS, to showcase how technology is transforming the health service across the UK.
Our event highlighted the strength of the sector in our home region and looked at the role of health tech in helping the NHS, driving economic growth, improving the environment and tackling health inequalities.
Inhealthcare CEO Bryn Sage gave a keynote speech on the company’s journey from hardware start-up to software scale-up over the last decade and took part a panel debate with Dawn Kellett, digital project manager at West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, Michael Folan, director of operations at Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust, and Jamie Innes, product director at Inhealthcare.
Our panellists provided some excellent insights into how technology is being used at NHS organisations across the region.
Event host Dr Neville Young, director of innovation and enterprise at Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, told the audience about his organisation’s key role in bridging the gap between industry and the NHS.
He said: “We have some fantastic health tech businesses across the UK and Leeds is actually one of the most densely populated regions in the UK for health tech. I think we have nearly 700 health and life sciences businesses in the Leeds city region which is more than Oxford and Cambridge combined.
“We have a really rich heritage in our region and do some really high quality health tech. That gets to the heart of our mission in our organisation – which is improving people’s lives through the use of innovation in healthcare.”
The event took place at the House of Fu restaurant in Leeds city centre on a very wet morning in late September and was attended by NHS and industry representatives.
Afterwards, Bryn said: “We would like to thank everybody for braving the weather to join us for a thoroughly enjoyable event with Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership and Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust.
“We would also like to thank Neville and his team for their ongoing help and encourage new health tech companies to embrace the support available through excellent initiatives like Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber and the Leeds Digital Festival.”
The festival was founded in 2016 and is now one of the largest open tech events in the UK.