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Managing Director RD & I
and Programme Director WM SDE

Hilary is Managing Director of Research Development & Innovation at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), one of the largest NHS Trusts in the UK. She manages the Trust’s research and innovation portfolio, overseeing in excess of £250m research infrastructure and a department of approximately 350 wte Research Development & Innovation Directorate staff. Her department supports the full spectrum of research at UHB, including research business support, research governance and grant preparation for submission for funding though to delivery of clinical trials, and support for generation, evaluation, implementation and audit of AI technologies. In collaboration with UHB’s Education Directorate and University of Birmingham, RD&I supports a portfolio of education and training activities for medical and allied health professionals academic capacity building.

Her department’s innovation portfolio encompasses healthcare data research infrastructure including the INSIGHT, PIONEER and PATHWAY health data research hubs. More recently, she has taken on the role of Programme Director for West Midlands Secure Data Environment (SDE), which is hosted by UHB. This is one of the regional SDEs which comprise an evolving national network as part of NHSE’s Data for R&D programme.

She has led successful delivery of a broad range of local, regional and national initiatives. These include: a number of key Trust (UHB) projects including, reconfiguration of surgical services, introduction of “hospital at night”, design and deployment of UHB Electronic Health Record (PICS), design and deployment of the Clinical Portal and Optims (patient self-check in) e-systems for outpatients, and whole-site redesign of clinical services in preparation for the move to UHB’s £545m Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Design and delivery of the West Midlands Regional Cascade Screening Service for Familial Hypercholestrolaemia, and components of the West Midlands Cancer Alliance Pathology Digitalisation and Transformation programme. She was operational director for the highly successful West Midlands Genomic Medicine Centre, and continues to support the work of NHSE’s genomics programme, through a range of connected activities.

Hilary is a member of the Birmingham Health Partners executive. Her BHP executive role includes senior NHS operational responsibility for developing and delivering the research strategy of BHP.

Hilary qualified as a registered nurse in 1985, going on to specialise in renal nursing. She has worked in both the public and private health sectors in the UK and Ireland. Hilary moved to UHBFT in 2001 from St Mary’s Hospital Paddington, where she held a joint Senior Lecturer Practitioner post with Thames Valley University, providing senior nurse management for St Mary’s Renal Services and leading post-graduate specialist renal nurse education for North West Thames.

0121 371 3697

Hilary.Fanning@uhb.nhs.uk