To mark the end of a very successful year at the NHSA, we celebrated ’12 days of NHSA Christmas’, looking back on our achievements of 2024 and celebrating the people who have been key to our success.

In January, we welcomed Teesside University as our first new members of 2024. Our leadership team joined colleagues in Teesside to mark the new partnership with an opening ceremony at the National Horizons Centre.

In February, we released an analysis that highlight the North-South health research funding gap, showing how the North received £405m of research funding, compared to the £1.69bn awarded to London, Oxford and Cambridge. The analysis shows that since the last figures were published in 2018, the North has received an increase of £81 million, while the South received £200 million more.

On the back of this, 23 health and life science leaders signed a letter to the then Prime Minister to urgently address this disparity.

In March, our Health Equity North analysis with NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester (ARC-GM) and the University of Manchester showed how people living in the North and coastal areas are more likely to die from deaths of despair. It found that in the North East of England more than twice as many people lost their lives due to Deaths of Despair compared to London.

In April, Child of the North All-Party Parliamentary Group  (APPG) and Health Equity North, released a report revealing the £25bn children in care burden placed on stretched services in the North of England. The report shows the disproportionately high rates of children in care in the North compared to its southern counterparts.

It also highlights the immense pressure placed on children’s services in northern regions that shoulder a greater share of a weighty economic burden as a result.

April also marked the one year anniversary of Health Equity North  – in the first year we published five impactful reports, two research papers and had our work cited in Parliament more than 20 times.

In April, Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust joined the NHSA’s membership. An opening event in Liverpool with leading health experts from the Trust marked the start of the partnership.

In August, on behalf of Health Equity North, we published two reports: one on Long COVID rates in the North of England, which revealed  that rates were 20% in some GP practices areas; and a second on infant mortality rates in the North, showing how more babies are dying before their first birthday, with those in deprived areas, the North of England and Black and Asian ethnic groups the worst affected.

In September, we published the Woman of the North report, launching the report with a Parliamentary event that included speakers such as Women’s Health Ambassador Dame Lesley Regan. The report exposes the growing regional inequalities women in the North have faced over the last decade and the impact this has on women’s quality of life, health, work, their families and communities.

We also held five impactful events around child poverty and women’s health at the Labour Party Conference with Health Equity North, Child of the North, The York Policy Engine and The Heseltine Institute. Ministers, MPs, leading poverty campaigners and young people with lived experience joined our events to explore critical issues facing the most vulnerable in the North, and what can be done to tackle these issues.

In October, we welcomed two health research experts to our board, strengthening the governance of the leading health and life sciences organisation. Professor Mark Kearney, Executive Dean, Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Leeds, was elected as Board Director, representing the alliance’s university members.

Dr Louise Wood CBE, formerly Director of Science, Research & Evidence at the Department of Health and Social Care and Deputy CEO of the National Institute for Health and Care Research, was appointed as a Non-Executive Director.

We also published research that showed how coastal, rural and areas in the North of England are less able to withstand and recover from adverse events. Led by academics from HEN, the University of Manchester and the NIHR ARC-GM, the study examined local authority data to identify geographical patterns in different communities’ ability to navigate and thrive in the face of prolonged challenges.