The Langland Award for Excellence in Healthcare Partnerships

Summary of work

OVID Health and MedCity collaborated with leading London health science academic institutions to deliver a minimum of 20,500 additional daily tests to the COVID-19 national testing programme. At the time of its launch, this constituted a 9% uplift in the total number of daily tests in the UK.
The London Testing Alliance was formed in April 2020 to leverage the capabilities at Imperial College London, King’s Health Partners, UCL with Health Services Laboratories and Queen Mary’s University London. This included lab space, expert knowledge and connectivity with NHS data systems to bring online new COVID-19 testing capacity as part of the national effort.
At its launch, Health Secretary Matt Hancock thanked the Alliance for being part of the national collective effort, describing the London Testing Alliance as “invaluable for increasing testing capacity at this crucial time.”
OVID Health’s objective was first and foremost to explain the offer to the key decision-makers and bring them to the table at a time of unprecedented demand on them. Our second objective was to raise the profile of MedCity with key stakeholders as the convener of choice across London to deliver rapid health benefits for the public during the pandemic at scale and pace.

Judges' comments

Situational analysis was clear in this entry and the team demonstrated a true need for the partnerships established. The programme implementation was equally remarkable, with many partnerships formed, demonstrating a true working relationship that focused on a common goal to deliver impressive outcomes. It was also good to see the strong feedback from stakeholders.