Congratulations Aaron Salter: Hospice UK’s Digital Champion Award winner 2024
We are delighted to share the inspiring story of Aaron Salter from Pilgrims Hospices in East Kent, winner of the Digital Champion Award at the Hospice UK Conference 2024. His remarkable work exemplifies the power of digital innovation in transforming healthcare delivery.
A milestone of digital transformation
As a social enterprise dedicated to supporting other healthcare organisations use data and analytics, we were proud to sponsor an award that celebrates individuals driving meaningful change in hospice care. Aaron’s recognition is not just a personal achievement but an inspiration for how technology can revolutionise patient care.
The challenge: Fragmented data, fragmented care
In 2022, Pilgrims Hospices faced a real challenge: inconsistent data collection and reporting across their three Inpatient Units (IPUs). This variability created significant obstacles:
- Difficulty in making informed decisions about patient care
- Challenges in identifying and addressing performance disparities
- Limited ability to ensure uniform, high-quality care across different sites
Aaron’s innovative approach
Recognising the transformative potential of data, Aaron embarked on a mission to standardise and enhance data management. The Digital Champion Award criteria perfectly captured his journey:
- Problem identification: Addressing data inconsistency and its impact on care quality
- Technological solution: Implementing a unified data collection and reporting framework
- Organisational innovation: Creating a replicable model for data-driven healthcare
- Stakeholder engagement: Collaborating across teams to drive meaningful change
- Measurable impact: Demonstrating the potential for scalable, improved patient care
Why this matters
In the realm of hospice and palliative care, every piece of data represents someone’s life and story. Aaron’s work goes beyond numbers, it’s about ensuring that every patient receives personalised, high-quality care that respects their unique journey.
His achievement reinforces our belief that technology, when thoughtfully applied, can be a powerful tool for compassionate healthcare. Congratulations, Aaron Salter – a true Digital Champion who is redefining what’s possible in hospice care.
Reflections from Matthew Riley, Head of Informatics at Here
The conference highlighted a critical challenge facing hospices: the pressing need to demonstrate their value within the healthcare ecosystem to secure sustainable NHS funding. With direct cost pressures mounting, it’s becoming increasingly clear that traditional charitable funding may not be sufficient to support hospices in the long term without innovative strategies.
In the current constrained commissioning landscape, data has emerged as a powerful tool for validation. As one presenter succinctly noted, “commissioners will pay for what they can measure.” This insight has prompted a promising collaborative approach among hospices, who are now pooling their data—often aligned with Integrated Care Board (ICB) geographical boundaries—to illustrate their collective impact.
This collaborative data-sharing represents an exciting and progressive development for the hospice sector. By aggregating and presenting comprehensive evidence of their contributions, hospices are positioning themselves to make a compelling case for continued and potentially expanded NHS support. In an era of increasing financial scrutiny, robust and meaningful data will be more crucial than ever in securing the resources necessary to maintain and enhance hospice services.
This award is about celebrating the people who make technology happen. Digital innovation in any healthcare environment is really hard, and it doesn’t matter how brilliant the technology is; it will only work when you have amazing people to make it work. That is why ‘Here’ are delighted to sponsor this award.
The essential role of hospices and the need for public support
Hospices provide vital care and support to children and adults living with long-term illnesses or approaching the end of their lives.
In 2022-23, hospices across the UK provided palliative and end of life care to 300,000 and provided direct support services to 60,000 family members, friends and carers.
It costs £1.6 billion each year to run the hospices in the UK.
Hospices raise over £1.1 billion of this through fundraising, and less than £0.5 billion comes from government funding.
Hospices do incredible work but they can’t do it without support. To find out about the different ways you could support Hospice UK you can find details on their website.
You can find more information on how we are working with hospices in our blogs:
How can Here help hospices enhance their impact with data? – Here
Why do we want to work with hospices? – Here
If you’d like to explore how we can help your hospice, we’d love to have a conversation.
To get in touch email: matthew.riley@nhs.net
Also of interest
Proud sponsors of the Hospice UK Digital Champion Award
We are proud to announce we will be supporting Hospice UK and their awards conference, celebrating the brilliant talent of the sector. It is our great pleasure to be sponsoring the Digital Champion Award.
How can Here help hospices enhance their impact with data?
Our goal isn’t to outsource your data function; it’s to build a partnership where we work alongside you, helping your hospice maximise its impact through effective data use. We aim to empower your team to focus on what really matters: understanding your service outcomes and making informed decisions about where improvements can be made.
Why do we want to work with hospices?
When we work in partnership we seek likeminded organisations, and it is no surprise that we have started to find these in the hospice sector. We feel privileged to support the work of St Gemma’s Hospice and to share our learning in this new partnership.