It’s been just over a week since Liverpool Health Partners took ‘Team Liverpool’ out to Amsterdam for a fruitful trip to HLTH Europe – the continent’s number one healthcare innovation event.

You can read more about the event here, but today our Executive Director’s wanted to reflect personally on their time at the convention, what they benefitted from, and how it will help drive excellence in research and innovation across the city.

Seamus O’Neill, Managing Director

The HLTH 2025 convention in Amsterdam was a really important event for Liverpool Health Partners. It was both the culmination of a lot of hard work but also an opportunity to demonstrate how far we have come as a partnership over the last two and a half years.

It is not the sort of thing that you should do lightly; taking a dozen plus people out of busy NHS and University roles for the best part of a week. There has to be purpose and there will have to be impact.

What we set out to do was: build cohesion within the partnership; establish connections with innovative systems and companies; and bring in contracts for evaluation and adoption of transformative innovation. These ambitions are, of course, linked and are based on showcasing the excellence in health and life sciences that exists across Liverpool City Region.

Luckily, that’s what LHP is here to do. We have a mandate from our member organisations to do two things; to convene people across the city to take advantage of strategically important opportunities, and to advocate, nationally and internationally, on behalf of the city region.

HLTH 2025 was, in itself, evidence that the convening and advocacy roles come together to good effect. A strong delegation mobilised, a single city-wide message was consistently delivered and strong partnerships with stakeholders were showcased. The cohesion in the group came quite naturally and opportunities that arose with companies were passed seamlessly and to great effect within Team Liverpool.

In terms of advocacy and making connections on a larger geographic footprint, partnering with The Northern Health Science Alliance, gave us a head start. The NHSA have years of experience in running international engagement, so we didn’t have to do it from a standing start. They gave us a way into many pan-North of England opportunities around Child Health, Data and tech evaluation. There was a strong North of England presence at HLTH, led by the various combined authorities. That is a signal that the northern CAs are mobilising, and we are likely to see an effect of that in the next few years in terms of the UK political system and government investment. It is really important that Liverpool City Region is prominent in this. At HLTH, we were. We need to ensure that we continue to be just as visible.

The contracts are going to take a while to materialise, they always do. However, when you put experienced and optimistic NHS practitioners in front of companies who are developing products and services, you can very quickly establish whether or not an innovation has potential within the NHS. We are compiling a list of really promising, high potential innovations that we heard about and for which companies are seeking UK evaluation sites. Not all of these will come to fruition, but some will and there will be inward investment associated with that. We may even attract some of the companies to set up in Liverpool and create jobs. We will be reporting back on that over the coming year as these connections become contracts. It is only by doing this that we can tract the return on investment in financial and impact terms.

With sincere thanks to all of our LHP delegates and the fantastic LHP team who made this happen.

Jenny Crooks, Deputy Managing Director

I’ve just returned from three energising days at HLTH Europe in Amsterdam, where I had the privilege of attending as part of the NHSA and Liverpool Health Partners (LHP) delegation. As Deputy MD of LHP, I went with the ambition to share the incredible work our partners are doing, connect with industry, and explore how we can co-create and evaluate real-world solutions to the challenges facing health and care today. What I experienced far exceeded that.

The event itself was brilliantly organised—thoughtfully curated content across seven distinct stages, supported by a powerful digital platform that made networking seamless. The atmosphere throughout was vibrant and welcoming, from early-morning keynotes to informal meet-ups and evening socials. These moments—whether at a food festival, at a café, or between sessions—sparked some of the most insightful and meaningful conversations of the week.

One of the standout themes for me was the scale and seriousness of focus on AI and digital transformation. But this wasn’t tech for the sake of it—there were real conversations about where digital solutions can ease the burden on clinicians, where AI can augment decision-making, and how interoperability and smarter procurement are essential to move from pilot to system-wide adoption. As someone passionate about supporting innovation from idea to implementation, this was both reassuring and exciting.

Other sessions that really stayed with me included the urgent need to close the gender health gap, the role of genomics in enabling truly personalised care, and the system-level changes needed to support innovation—particularly in procurement and evaluation. These are all issues we’re grappling with across our LHP ecosystem, and it was inspiring to see global alignment on the need to act.

What made it even more special was the time spent with colleagues from across the NHS, academia, local authorities, and industry. Taking a step back from the day-to-day to engage with each other, share openly, and look ahead was incredibly valuable. It reminded me how important these shared spaces are for building momentum and moving from vision to impact.

I left Amsterdam with new connections, renewed focus, and real pride in what we’re doing across the LHP partnership. Thank you to NHSA, the brilliant team behind HLTH Europe, and everyone who took the time to talk, collaborate, and inspire.

I’m excited to help turn these conversations into action.

Marga Perez-Casal, Deputy Managing Director and Head of Joint Research Office

I was lucky enough to be included in the excellent Liverpool delegation to the HLTH Europe 2025 conference, which took place in Amsterdam between 16-19 June. It was brilliant to see such a great representation of what this city has to offer in the world of health research and innovation. LHP came as part of the Northern Health Science Alliance team, and included partners from UoL, UHLG, Alder Hey, Walton Centre, LJMU, and from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

I can’t say that I knew what to expect, as this is not your typical conference. What I saw and experienced was a gathering of kindred spirits all focused on making healthcare technology more effective and user friendly; a real positive buzz on the floor which was really contagious.

Some of us were part of the Market Connect programme, where you get to speak to a number of individuals interested on what Liverpool has to offer, and identify Liverpool as the place to test real state of the art solutions. I had the opportunity of talking to a couple of colleagues from startups developing AI solutions to support clinical research, and another with AI supporting clinician decision making.

It was an AI centric conference, and solutions were coming fast from all directions. With all what I could see and hear about the uses of AI in healthcare, it really made me reflect about the direction of travel for technology as a clinical support tool.

I’m sure that what we saw was just the beginning, and that some of the innovations on display will be soon enough part of our normal lives.