How the Midlands has responded to COVID-19

Darren Clark, director of Medilink Midlands, writes about how its services has adapted during the pandemic.

As I sit at home writing this, expecting a Teams call in the next half hour, having reviewed the company risk register to allow staff back to the office at working distances no less than two metres apart and ensuring we’ll have enough hand sanitiser and disinfectant wipes, I’m struck by how ludicrous such an arrangement would have sounded less than a year ago, but now is as normal a consideration as which shirt to wear. 

The reason for such a change is of course, COVID-19. This is a crisis which has been incredibly disruptive for us all and has forced us to adapt to different ways of working. Whilst I would never say that it’s been plain sailing, the Midlands has ably met the challenges faced over the past six months and adapted accordingly. Fluidity and dynamism are characteristics of Midlands businesses as a whole, and during the COVID-19 crisis, these attributes have shone.

During the COVID-19 crisis, connecting businesses has been more important than ever. As a focal point of life science industry in the Midlands, Medilink Midlands has played a pivotal role from the onset; supporting the business community by connecting them with suppliers, distributors, key NHS contacts and other like-minded businesses who were pursuing similar COVID-related goals. 

This led us to set up ‘The Big Ask’ alongside the East and West Midlands’ academic health science networks (AHSNs). The Big Ask started as a central repository of all current needs and wants of life science businesses in the Midlands and to date, we’ve had 111 offers of products and services, from 105 different companies. This has included the manufacture of gowns, gloves, masks and face shields, COVID-19 testing, remote consultation, mental health services and medical textiles. Alongside this repository, it has grown into a sourcing service, helping our companies find the materials and components needed to meet the unprecedented demand as their traditional supply chains failed. We plan to continue operating The Big Ask for the foreseeable future and will continue to bring companies, clinicians and academics together as part of our mission to help the Midlands life science community to grow and prosper. 

As well as continuing our support of business, there have also been some exciting developments within Medilink itself, with the ongoing creation of a Medilink Midlands group structure. Prior to COVID-19, Medilink East and West Midlands had been working together under the Medilink Midlands brand when delivering region wide initiatives such as CoDex4SMEs – an Interreg NW Europe project helping develop companion diagnostics and personalised medicine, our work with the Department for International Trade showcasing the Midlands Life Sciences capabilities, and our MOU with the City of Mentor, USA. This ever-growing relationship saw Medilink Midlands and the City of Mentor come together again for the third year running (albeit virtually) in early October, to help Midlands life science businesses to trade in the American market. 

The reason why we decided to look to formalise the Medilink Midlands group structure now, of all times, was that we felt that in times of uncertainty and unknown, what businesses need more than anything is reliability and steadfastness. We saw the opportunity to give this to the Midlands life science community by providing a united, Midlands-wide front, in the form of Medilink Midlands. This operating model will ensure there is a truly region wide life science network operating under a single governance structure, whilst the delivery of our sub-regional contracts continue.

For us here at Medilink Midlands, lockdown and COVID-19 has been an invaluable time to revise and reflect on our current internal processes and capabilities, take stock and adjust our approach to allow us to continue to serve the Midlands life science community, unburdened of current circumstances.

I can’t predict all that the time ahead will hold for us all, but we all approach it a little wiser and more experienced. Throughout the entire COVID-19 situation, I have maintained that the Midlands has the skill, ingenuity, and know-how to push through, and by working together we’ll face down any new challenges that stand in our way.