Bristol Health Partners is a strategic collaboration of organisations across the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) health and care system. We have 11 partners: they include NHS trusts and the local Integrated Care Board, Bristol’s universities and the local authorities from Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. Each is part of Bristol Health Partners voluntarily, and we are funded by contributions from our partners.
Our region has considerable health and care research strengths – through our partnership we help make the most of these through connecting academia with the needs and ambitions of communities, the health service, social care, public health and the voluntary sector.
Many other health partnerships are focussed on clinical research, but the model we have in BNSSG is different. We cover not only clinical and biomedical research, but also public and population health, and primary care. We do not focus solely on illness: we also address lifelong health and how to prevent illness in the first place.
We work in Health Integration Teams (HITs). These HITs address critical health and care challenges that will help people live longer and healthier lives and improve how services are delivered. HITs work across the partnership and focus on different health conditions or challenges.
Bristol Health Partners is an Academic Health Science Centre, one of only eight in the UK, designated by NHS England and the NIHR. “Academic Health Science Centres are regional partnerships bringing together expertise from universities and NHS organisations. Working with local partners including local authorities and industry, they improve health and care services by translating early scientific research and discoveries into benefits for individual patients and local and national populations.” (NHS England)
We are the first Academic Health Science Centre in England to develop a fully integrated relationship with our Integrated Care System, and the first to sign up to the shared commitment to public involvement in health and care research. We provide the Research and Innovation Steering Group for the Healthier Together Integrated Care System for BNSSG. How we work together has been recognised as an example of best practice in the NHS’s recent guidance for integrated care systems.
