00:00I'm David Gibson, I'm Professor of Personalised Medicine at Ulster University in the School of Medicine here.
00:05Yeah, tell us a bit about the IMPROVE project which you're heading up David.
00:09It's a significant investment of 10 million from the EU Peace Plus money
00:15and it's really targeting, I suppose using innovation to prescribe more optimally for
00:23patients in a personalised way. That's right, that's right. So this is first in Ireland
00:28in GP practices. What we're aiming to do is to really address need around some of the key
00:35long-term health conditions which people in the cross-border regions of Ireland really suffer
00:40in higher numbers than anywhere else in the UK or Ireland. So those would be things like pain
00:46medications in heart disease as well and then also with depression and the way we want to address
00:54these is to try and improve the treatments that people are already on and make sure they're
00:59appropriate and to do that we're going to apply what's called the patient-centred medication review
01:03so we'll look at all the medications that people are on if they're suffering from multiple
01:08conditions and they have drugs which might cause issues, might cause symptoms to worsen or actually
01:15might at very worst put them in hospital and the other approach we're going to take is a personalised
01:20medicine view so that's where we're trying to tailor the treatments to somebody's genetic makeup so
01:25we're going to look at people's DNA in a way that will help make the prescribing much more precise
01:31and get the right treatment at the right dose to the right patient. David I think what you said
01:35very timely because I've heard this before it's with people on poly medications you don't know what
01:41I think could be killing me you know what I mean like and people end up having difficulties with
01:44the kidneys and things like that and end up in hospital so this because you've got so much data
01:48now and everything's computerized we've got data sets that we wouldn't have dreamt of maybe even 10
01:55years ago but 20 or 30 years ago certainly so is it harnessing all that to try and make sure that
02:00it is and you're absolutely right uh we're wanting to harness in one sense the the genetic information
02:08that we're born with you know that we all have little individual changes in that and those can determine
02:13whether you would respond well to a treatment or might have an issue like you're relaying there
02:17where it makes you feel worse and it could be a risk that you would end up in hospital so in tailoring
02:22our treatments to that it means it reduces that risk of any adverse event and also means that you're
02:28getting the best possible benefit from that treatment as well so it's that two-fold approach and doing
02:34this all in collaboration with patients as well in a way that makes it much more accessible is is our wish
02:39here i'm working with the multi-disciplinary teams in tb practices across the northwest of ireland that
02:45will be in counties donegal and slago and then also into county tyrone and county dairy as well
02:50but with help importantly from our partners in scotland in tayside the dundee region there as well yeah
02:56and all of those areas the peripheral regions and the characterised by as we know some
03:04per morbidity and mortality and life expectancy rates so it's it'll be cross cross working there
03:10that will probably benefit everybody that's right um recent figures there was a report has just come
03:15out um but again reports nothing new really that the northwest regions and the border in particular
03:20uh county dairy was highlighted as suffering some of the lowest uh or deprivation index compared to
03:27anywhere else in the uk and that has health consequences and also then transfer translates
03:33into health inequalities uh you're absolutely right too again in the cross-border regions people are
03:37suffering from multiple long-term conditions uh in much higher numbers than anywhere else in the ireland
03:43of ireland and uh in the uk so we're really addressing a core need here uh which also comes through in
03:50high levels of prescribing for those conditions and a burden on the healthcare system itself too is what we'd also
03:56hope to alleviate and it's a significant project it's going to around 10 000 people over four years
04:02like it's it's it's a significant investment that's right and uh it'll be 7 500 in the island of ireland
04:09that's a bit between uh our southern uh regions and into the north of ireland as well we'll be able to
04:15to the veil of this approach through gp practices
04:25you
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