Welcome to the Midlands Analyst Network

Thank you for being part of our growing community! If you are an analyst who works in health & care or the wider public sector, then join the Midlands Analyst Network!

Launched in April 2020, this thriving community now connects over 1,400 members from a wide range of organisations from the Midlands and beyond. The Network provides a supportive space for analysts to share ideas, resources, and good practice, as well as to seek advice, spark debate, and develop skills together.

I love how the huddles have grown into a space beyond simply sharing ideas and work, to a regular opportunity for analysts to come together as a community. They frequently lead to insightful and previously unconsidered questions and debates and also serve as a fantastic welcoming opportunity for those dipping their toes into the world of analytics and improved decision making. Andi Orlowski, Director of the Health Economics Unit

Meet your Network lead: Rachel Caswell

Rachel is a Senior Healthcare Analyst at the Strategy Unit and the Lead for Training & Development. She's passionate about developing the Network and supporting analysts across the system to connect, learn, and lead through collaboration.

Fortnightly Huddles

At the heart of the Network are our fortnightly online Huddles, hosted on MS Teams (see link below). The Huddles cover a large range of topics and you are very welcome to join one at any time – for quick access to a Huddle, just follow the link below.  You don’t have to be a member of the Midlands Analyst Network to come to a Huddle but if you’d like to be kept up to date with all future Huddles and training opportunities then contact Rachel (rachel.caswell@nhs.net) and we’ll take it from there.

We try to keep them as informal but as informative as possible and welcome contributions from Network members as well from academia, subject specialists, national and occasionally international presenters.

If you have any queries about the Huddles, how to access them, if you want to find out what’s gone before, or you want to present then please contact Rachel.

Next Huddle: 23 July (11-12): ERM (Enterprise Risk Management) + Decision Quality: 2 applications

Decision Quality and AI in clinical decision-making.

In this session I am delighted to be joined by Deb Lessard, Director Corporate Risk Management Excellence, University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre (UPMC) who will be talking about how AI is used to improve decision quality in clinical decision-making. Deb brings more than 30 years of experience across healthcare risk management, patient safety, quality and decision-making. With a background in both nursing and law, she is particularly interested in using interdisciplinary, evidence-informed approaches to support better decisions and improve healthcare practice.

In this session Deb will give us some background information about her organisation before sharing information about 2 different applications:

The two applications are:

• AI CDSS (Clinical Decision Support Software) through the data governance and operational excellence lenses
• Risk Management/Claims : Using DQ in reserving analyses and trial strategy

Who is the Huddle for?

Same Teams link as usual and if you don't have this - it's here!

Click here to join the meeting Hop in at 11 am!

Up and coming Huddles

• 06/08/26: How many beds do we need? With Lucy Morgan, Strategy Unit
• 20/08/26: Admissions thresholds with Steven Wyatt and Andrew Hood, Strategy Unit
• 03/09/26: Exploring workforce opportunities for analysts with Neil Morgan and Jon Adamson, MLCSU
• 17/09/26: Midlands Prevention Toolkit, with Su Xavier and Olivia Conroy