About

The Northern Health Futures (NortHFutures) Hub is a cross-sector consortium of over 50 partners in higher education, health and social care, industry, and the public and voluntary sectors.

The Hub is led out of Open Lab in the School of Computing at Newcastle University. The Hub facilitates responsible research, innovation and training on healthcare technologies and digital health to address unmet health and care needs and inequalities in the North East and North Cumbria (NENC) region of the UK.  

The Hub’s activities are underpinned by the principles of community and people-centred approaches to digital health research and innovation, to ensure outputs are usable and useful to diverse stakeholders. This is enabled by our close cooperation with the Voluntary, Social and Community Enterprise (VCSE) sector, and regular Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) and oversight. 

NortHFutures is a pilot programme currently funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for three years beginning in November 2023. In this time we have established NortHFutures as a sustainable, pioneering network working across job sectors that empowers people to engage and lead in digital health and health-tech initiatives.   

Humanising digital transformation: themes 

Our hub activities and funding awards have been organised around the following themes relating to unmet need: 

• Promoting Health and Nutrition for Children and Young People; 

• Developing Digital Surgical Pathways; 

• Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing; 

• Living and Ageing Well with Multiple Long-term Conditions. 

Across the North East and North Cumbria

The hub consortium is mobilised to address unmet health and care needs, health inequalities, and digital exclusion in the NENC region where there is proportionately high deprivation, child poverty, mental health challenges and a high percentage of people in the population living with multiple long-term conditions. 

“Our region has a strong history and legacy of innovation, transformation and collaboration. Many of our future aims and aspirations will be enabled with digital data and technology, allowing our region not just to do the same things better, but to do better things." 

— Professor Graham Evans, Former Executive Chief Digital and Information Officer/SIRO, at NHS NENC ICB

Hub leadership

The Principal Investigator of NortHFutures is Prof. Abigail Durrant at Open Lab, Newcastle University. Abi co-directs the hub with Prof. Naeem Soomro, Consultant Urologist at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The directors are supported by a wider leadership team with representation from across the partnership and hub consortium.

“Our aspiration is that the Hub will deliver a supportive and diverse community infrastructure that will stimulate social, economic and cultural growth, and will promote wellbeing for all.”

— Abigail Durrant & Naeem Soomro.

NortHFutures Summary

Overview of NortHFutures