MidTECH 2024 Newsletter:

Welcome:

Welcome to our 2024 newsletter! We will be discussing the West Midlands Security Data Environment project that we have been working on. We will be sharing all of our MidTECH updates, events, tips on IP and more.

Project Highlight:
West Midlands Secure Data Environment:

A little over a year since its inception, the West Midlands Secure Data Environment (West Midlands SDE) is transforming the way the region’s health data is accessed for research.

Following the West Midlands SDE’s development as part of an NHS England network of 12 secure data environments, accredited and approved professionals will be able to apply to use the platform to inform their work in the fields of research and clinical trials.

The platform will bring together health information from across the six integrated care systems in the West Midlands. This large pool of invaluable data will support innovative advances in care and treatment to reduce health inequalities and benefit the 6.2 million people living in the region. Local people are involved with all key programme developments to ensure they align with the expectations of the population.

Fundamental to the SDE is the level of security it employs. It operates to the highest data protection standards, while an ‘airlock’ system will prevent researchers from taking data out of the environment. Results of their analysis will be checked by the SDE team to ensure individuals’ privacy and confidentiality are maintained.

West Midlands Programme Director and SDE national lead, Hilary Fanning, said: “Secure data environments are designed to bring together NHS professionals, university researchers and industry experts to deliver research and innovation powered by NHS data. These NHS-owned and managed data platforms will provide secure, expedient access to data and improve what’s previously been a time-consuming and costly process.

“The West Midlands SDE will enable us to ensure safe stewardship of data for research that will really make a difference to the lives of people in the region. It will improve the quality of care we provide through innovation based on research, positively impacting our communities.”

In February, the independent Confidentiality Advisory Group, CAG, gave its approval for the SDE to proceed. The Health Research Authority also gave the SDE’s application a positive response through its Research Ethics Committee review process.

Now the programme is seeking further endorsement to provide access for non-research use of health data.

Professor Liz Sapey, Co-chair of the SDE’s information governance and ethics workstream, said: “Bringing together data from across health and social care providers in the West Midlands has the potential to transform the care we provide, and build better treatments through evidence. The West Midlands Secure Data Environment offers game-changing potential to not only work with our local health and care partners to improve people’s health, but also to ensure that patients and the public are at the heart of decisions in how health data is used to benefit society.”

MidTECH representatives are members of the West Midlands SDE’s commercial workstream. MidTECH provides advice and support to NHS organisations across the West Midlands region on matters of contracting (for example, if an NHS organisation has a product it wishes to commercialise) and protection of NHS intellectual property (IP). As a key supporter of NHS innovation, networked to innovation leads in our regional NHS trusts, the West Midlands SDE sees MidTECH as a huge asset to the programme.

MidTECH Updates:
Our Monthly Newsletter:

Did you know that we have a monthly newsletter? In these newsletters we share updates on events that are occurring in that month, small updates on MidTECH, and some intellectual property advice!

If you would like to have access to our monthly newsletters, then please contact us on the following email: enquiries@midtech.org.uk and we will add you to the mailing list!

What has MidTECH achieved in the last financial year?

See below the fantastic numbers we achieved in the last financial year! Including how many new disclosures came to us, how many projects we gave intellectual property advice to and much more.

Events:
Introduction to Intellectual Property and MidTECH:

Is your NHS Trust within the West Midlands? We are offering FREE intellectual property and introduction to MidTECH sessions. These sessions will showcase the services we have to offer, give a basic introduction to intellectual property and its application in the NHS, including funding applications, collaborations and commercialisation. We will also explain how we work, how we can help bring your innovation to life and explain how we can help protect your ideas from being copied or stolen.

We would love the chance to introduce ourselves to your NHS Organisation. Just contact us via our email enquiries@midtech.org.uk and we can arrange a date to come visit! We can also arrange these meetings over Teams, just let us know what works best for your organisation.

Other MidTECH Events:

The Institute of Translational Medicine (ITM) will be hosting Intellectual Property (IP) clinics in collaboration with MidTECH Innovations.

These ITM IP Clinics will give NHS employees advice and guidance on any of the following:

  • Who owns my idea?
  • Can I protect my idea?
  • Can I discuss my idea with others?
  • I want to apply for funding, what do I need to think about re. IP?
  • What happens with IP when I collaborate with another organisation?

There will be ITM IP Clinics coming up, if you would like to be notified then please send us an email: enquiries@midtech.org.uk.

Q&A:

You may be asking yourself what is Know-how?

Know-how is the practical knowledge, techniques, skills and expertise that an individual or organisation has, such as the experience or knowledge relating to a system or process, or the implementation of an innovation or piece of technology. It is an intangible form of intellectual property which, as with other forms of intellectual property, can be bought, sold, licensed, etc.

It can be very important with patent licenses as the knowledge needed to use or implement the patented technology may require expert skills held by the patent owner, which if not considered may make the patent on its own useless to another party.

Enquires:

If there is anything else you would like to discuss with our team, then please contact us and email us on: enquiries@midtech.org.uk