The University of South Wales (USW) has a proud history of working in partnership with industry, businesses, and communities to create real-world impact. With campuses in Cardiff, Newport, and Pontypridd, USW offers a distinctive portfolio of industry-informed courses, co-designed with employers to ensure graduates have the skills, knowledge, and experience to thrive. As Wales’s leading widening participation university, USW is committed to addressing social inequalities, supporting students from all backgrounds to achieve their potential, and contributing to the economic, social, and cultural prosperity of our region and beyond. Through innovation, collaboration, and a shared sense of purpose, USW is helping to build better futures for students, partners, and communities.
In line with this commitment to innovation and collaboration, the USW Health and Wellbeing Accelerator leverages decades of experience and deep expertise in health, care, and education, combined with robust connections across the Welsh healthcare ecosystem, to drive meaningful innovation in health and wellbeing. This expertise directly addresses pressing health issues, including healthy ageing, population health promotion, and improved care quality for vulnerable groups.
In collaboration with faculties and professional services across the University, the Accelerator fosters user-led training, innovative curricula, and bespoke solutions tailored to organisational and business challenges.
For more information on the USW Health and Wellbeing Accelerator, visit: Health and Wellbeing Accelerator – University of South Wales
The University of South Wales’ Intensive Learning Academy (ILA) for Leading Digital Transformation is a pioneering initiative designed to develop and support leaders across health and social care in Wales in driving digital transformation. Aligned with Welsh Government’s Digital and Data Strategy for Health and Social Care in Wales, the ILA provides training, development, and knowledge exchange opportunities to equip professionals with the skills needed to innovate, improve services, and introduce digital efficiencies.
Since its launch, the ILA has delivered learning and collaboration activities to over 4,500 health and social care professionals, with over 100 students enrolled in the MSc Leading Digital Transformation. Participants have implemented digital solutions that enhance operational efficiency, streamline procurement, and reduce patient referral times—resulting in an estimated £6.7 million in cost savings for NHS Wales.
Beyond Wales, the ILA fosters international knowledge exchange through its Change Management Podcast, which has attracted over 100,000 listeners worldwide. This growing community of innovators ensures the continued evolution of digital solutions in health and social care.
For more information on the ILA’s work, visit: Intensive Learning Academy – University of South Wales
The Role of the ILA in the Innovation Framework
The Intensive Learning Academy for Leading Digital Transformation (LDT ILA) was established to meet an expressed need from Welsh Government for a new offer to address the perceived gap in the effective leadership of digital transformation efforts across the health and wellbeing sector in Wales.
The ILA has made significant progress in the four years of operation and we believe we have a unique and important offer within the wider innovation ecosystem in Wales and draws representation from a wide number of partner organisations and stakeholders to ensure our outputs remain user centred.
The emerging importance of digital innovation within the Health and Wellbeing System in Wales has been highlighted in multiple key strategic documents. A Healthier Wales (2019) set out a broad ambition for the NHS in Wales to become an exemplar in the use of digital and data in the provision of health and care and in improving population health. The establishment of Digital Health and Care Wales with a new system leadership role for digital development has created a new momentum in Wales. The Health and Care Workforce Strategy developed jointly by Health Education and Improvement Wales and Social Care Wales has two strategic themes explicitly devoted to digital capability in the workforce and the development of a stronger approach to leadership and succession, both by 2030 (Themes 4 and 6).The Welsh Governments Digital Strategy and Innovation Strategy both emphasise the importance of leadership in the digital domain as central to the improvement of health and wellbeing in Wales in parallel with wider developments across the economy and society more generally.
A common theme emerging from the strategic discourse is the gap in digital skills amongst managers and leaders within our health and care system alongside the limited capability across our system to bring about transformational change using digital technology. The importance of addressing this issue was highlighted by the Covid 19 pandemic. At this time our health and care system was forced to adopt innovative digital platforms at speed to facilitate ongoing access to health and care and the management of the system when face to face working was compromised. Tangible progress has been made toward the strategic goal of a digital first model of delivery but there is more to do.
We believe the ILA has a unique role to play within the innovation and leadership development systems in response to these pressures. Our core offer is a suite of leadership programmes and activities centred around supporting managers and leaders across all levels of the system to gain the technical knowledge and skills they need and the leadership and change management skills required to deliver transformational change.
Innovations delivered by the ILA so far have produced an evidenced cost efficiency saving of £6.7m with in NHS Wales and Social Care.
Additional Resources to Enhance the Website:
We can contribute a range of resources, including:
- Case studies on digital transformation in NHS Wales
- Video recordings of keynote sessions from ILA conferences
- Links to the Change Management Podcast and other learning resources
