A Greater Manchester-based dementia research team has won the first ‘Modernising Diagnostics’ award at the Health Service Journal (HSJ) Awards 2023.
The prestigious award was won by the brainHealth Manchester team, led by Dr Ross Dunne – a dementia research specialist at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH).
brainHealth Manchester is a new ‘pathway’ to help diagnose the underlying diseases causing dementia in people living with the mildest forms of cognitive impairment.
The initiative will allow service users to have better knowledge and choice when it comes to making decisions around their illness and future care, as well as making it easier to participate in some of the ground breaking research taking place in GMMH.
The HSJ Awards took place on November 16, at Evolution London, hosted by comedian Matt Lucas and supported by partner Vodafone Business.
Judging panel
The judging panel was made up of a diverse range of highly influential and respected figures within the healthcare community.
All winners were judged against five criteria; ambition; outcome; spread; value and involvement.
Members of the brainHealth Manchester team took the stage to accept their award as the first winner of the Modernising Diagnostics category, which had been added this year to reflect areas of innovation, initiate and progress in positive patient outcomes.
Following a thorough judging process, GMMH was also named a finalist in the ‘Mental Health Innovation of the Year Award’ for the MCT Pathway and PATHWAY Beacons projects, which integrated Metacognitive Therapy into cardiac rehabilitation for people living with cardiovascular disease.
Diagnosing diseases
Dr Dunne said: “brainHealth Manchester is part of the UK’s Brain Health Coalition, a group of expert centres working together to develop specific clinics to diagnose the diseases underlying dementia at the earliest possible stage.”
“At the moment, tests to diagnose early disease are available to a small minority of UK patients living close to an expert centre. Together with collaborators in the Brain Health Coalition, we hope to encourage more UK memory clinics to establish pathways for early disease that provide comprehensive risk assessment, personalised risk reduction, and timely disease diagnosis as well as enhancing access to research.”
“We hope this win will help people living with milder cognitive problems, who may have underlying diseases that could go on to cause dementia within 5 or 10 years.”
75th anniversary of the NHS
Alastair McLellan, Health Service Journal editor, said: “What better year than the 75th anniversary of our wonderful and world-leading NHS to be able to applaud all those who were recognised as worthy winners at the 2023 HSJ Awards.
“I’d like to extend my personal congratulations to Dr Ross Dunne, brainHealth Manchester and Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust who scooped ‘top spot’ in the Modernising Diagnostics Award.
“It was so encouraging to – once again – see an unprecedented level of entries! The calibre of projects was outstanding and I really do hope that entrants – whether they took home trophy or not – enjoyed the experience and benefitted from the informed feedback they received from our highly experienced judging panel.
A ‘record-breaking’ 1,456 entries were received for this year’s Awards, with 223 projects and individuals reaching the final shortlist, making it the biggest awards programme in the award’s 43-year history.
