Egality is a community engagement agency. We tackle health inequalities by enhancing inclusion in research and improving access to treatments and products. We collaborate with people and organisations often under-represented in research, and connect them with life sciences companies to bring fresh insights. We facilitate focus groups, workshops, and user testing, helping companies create products that are effective for everyone.
The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is one of the largest and busiest acute hospital trusts in the country, a regional and national centre for specialist treatment, a renowned biomedical research facility, and the local hospital for the Leeds community.
We treat 1.5 million patients every year, including more than 200,000 emergency patients. We spend over £1.9bn of NHS money, treating illness and disease in Leeds and on specialised services for people across Yorkshire and the Humber and nationally.
We are increasingly seeking to use our economic influence to influence the health and wellbeing of our community, as an employer of over 22,000 staff, purchaser of goods and services and civic partner. We work with academia and industry to play a leading role in education, research and innovation.
We are rated as a ‘Good’ hospital trust by the Care Quality Commission, and our strategy is to continue improving so that we provide outstanding care for our patients.
PROBr
PROBr is a digital platform that makes it easier for researchers to run their studies and for people to take part in research that improves healthcare.For researchers, PROBr provides tools to organise projects, track progress, and find diverse participants, helping studies move forward faster and more smoothly.
For participants, PROBr makes it easy to sign up to studies, so you can make a real difference in healthcare and help improve treatments for those who need them. To get started, create an account on https://www.probr.co“
Professor David Jayne – Co-Director
David Jayne is Clinical Co-Director for the HealthTech Research Centre in Accelerated Surgical Care. He is Professor of Surgery at the University of Leeds and Honorary Consultant Surgeon at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. He brings expertise in the identification of unmet needs related to colorectal disease, the development of surgical technologies through interdisciplinary working, and clinical translation through early and late phase clinical trials.
In 2012, he was awarded an NIHR Research Professorship to develop and evaluated new surgical technologies for patients with bowel cancer. He served as Clinical Director for the NIHR HealthTech Co-operative in Colorectal Therapies (2012-17) and Clinical Director for the current MedTech Co-operative (MIC) in Surgical Technologies (2017-23). He is the Surgical Technologies Theme Lead for the Leeds Biomedical Research Centre and a member of the NIHR Surgical Oncology Translational Research Centre.
David has a long track record of developing junior academic colleagues. He is Deputy ATPD for Surgery in the Yorkshire and Humber Deanery (2014-). He has served on the following training awards committees: national NIHR IAT Awards (2012-2018); NIHR DRF (2012-15); NIHR Clinician Scientist (2015-18), NIHR i4i PDA (2019-). He currently serves on the NIHR Advanced Fellowship committee (2018-). He was Co-Director of the NIHR Advanced Surgical Technologies Incubator (2020-23) with the remit to build national surgical research capacity and capability for medical and other healthcare professional researchers. He is mentor for AMS and NIHR Academy.
University of Leeds
Established in 1904, the University of Leeds is one of the largest universities in the UK. We’re part of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities and are renowned globally for the quality of our research and teaching.
As a leading biomedical and health service research campus, our mission is to deliver research excellence that impacts on human health and wealth. We do this not only through the School of Medicine but by harnessing strengths across the University, notably in physical-mathematical sciences, digital expertise, computation, bioengineering and biosciences.
We take a transdisciplinary approach to tackle tomorrow’s major health burdens, bringing together researchers from a breadth of specialisms to tackle three key research themes. In the Detection and treatment theme, we aim to improve early and efficient detection and diagnosis, and more effective treatments. Our Better outcomes theme focuses on improving care and outcomes for patients with cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis and more. Our Coping with chronic conditions theme aims to help those with long-term conditions to live independently.
Ms. Vee Mapunde – Co-Director
Vee is the Senior Operations Director bring complementary expertise and leadership skills to the Senior Clinical Director role, with a proven track record of working cohesively to build interdisciplinary partnerships and training networks to accelerate the translation of innovation into the NHS.
Vee has held NHS professional and management roles, gaining extensive experience of cross-sector working to accelerate the translation and uptake of innovation into the NHS. She was Programme Director for the NIHR Surgical MedTech Co-operative (Surgical MIC) between 2018 – 2023.
Vee has over 15 years experience in leadership roles, developing and implementing strategy as part of research programme grants for the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) in England. This has included leading change management initiatives, supporting clinical research teams to develop long term strategies to improve on their business development capabilities; as well as improving business processes by making them more efficient and effective, to deliver on goals and objectives.
Ms. Sheila Boyes – HRC Programme Manager – Operational
Sheila worked for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust since 1989, in the MRI department before moving into research in 2000. She holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Health Research and a NEBS Management Certificate. She worked on clinical research studies with contrast agents and MRI in radiology for eight years, before taking on a research management role in 2008. Sheila joined the HTC in 2016 on secondment and went onto work on the Surgical MIC network as a Project Manager. Sheila’s current role is the HRCs Programme Manager – Operational.
British Standards Institution (BSI)
The healthcare and life sciences industry is actively aligning on methods, engaging suppliers, and improving data gathering related to greenhouse gas emissions for carbon foot printing.
BSI will assist with quality management systems and medical device standards for regulatory approval. This will include providing training and educational content in medical device standards.
HRC Programme Manager – Strategic
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Device Access UK
Established in 2010, Device Access has supported over 40 successful applications for NICE approvals and more than 1000 cases for change within the NHS, prior to joining the IGES group in 2019.
Device Access has supported a wide range of international and European companies introducing high value medical technologies to the UK, effectively navigating the complex NHS reimbursement pathways through the creation and implementation of local and national market access strategies that demonstrate the technologies’ true value.
In 2017, Device Access became one of the first NICE approved facilitators for the MedTech Early Technical Assessment (META Tool®).
Device Access holds a data sharing agreement from NHS England, which provides data on all hospital admissions and outcomes on a monthly basis, allowing them to work with companies to further understand the impact technologies may have on current patient populations.
Device Access will provide support for market intelligence and market access research and training.