About us

Based on our previous success as the Welsh Health Economics Support Service (WHESS), we were awarded further funding from Health and Care Research Wales, and rebranded in 2020 to become Health and Care Economics Cymru. Our teams are based at Swansea University and Bangor University.

Our talented researchers have a wide range of skills, enabling us to ensure you have access to the right support and expertise. You can meet the team here.

Our vision is: ‘To provide word-class health economics expertise (collectively harnessing an agile, integrated all-Wales approach) to enable excellent health and social care research and development in Wales to the benefit of patients, the public and the economy’ for Wales 

How can we help you?

Our Health and Care Economics Cymru team explores the value for money of different treatments, interventions and services. We provide the best evidence possible – or help others to understand that evidence – to support making tough choices about how to allocate our limited health and care resources. Making decisions on key resources are necessary for us to keep people healthy and well cared for across Wales, now and in the future. We work across the life span, investigating the cost-effectiveness of everything from public health programmes aimed at preventing ill-health, to new treatments to improve outcomes for people with chronic conditions or cancer.  

We can provide expertise, skills and support in:

Study development
Building collaborative relationships
Costing of interventions, National Health Service (NHS) and societal resources
Economic evaluations such as cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analysis, based on clinical trials and/or economic modelling
Systematic and realist reviews and epidemiology
Priority setting methods including Programme Budgeting & Marginal Analysis (PBMA)
Social Return on Investment Analysis (SROI) Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs)
Preference elicitation studies, such as discrete choice experiments Use and analysis of routine data
Publishing and disseminating outcomes to other researchers, funders such as government and charities, and to patient groups

Who do we work with?

We work closely with our colleagues in other Health and Care Research groups, clinical trials units and other researchers across Wales, the UK, and beyond. For example, we support research studies which, in addition to clinical benefit, also need to understand whether a new intervention or treatment is cost-effective.
For NHS and care professionals, we provide dedicated support through each of the regional Research Design and Conduct Services. You can get easy direct access to health economics expertise to help with grant applications and obtaining funding for your research.
We also collaborate with health and care organisations such as NHS Trusts and Health Boards, local authorities and other care providers to investigate whether existing local services or interventions provide good value for money. This includes using routine data, such as information already routinely collected to undertake real-world evaluations.
For local authorities and charities, we can help demonstrate the social value of your investment in new services and interventions. For example, our Social Value Hub offers support, advice, training and consultancy to help organisations measure and communicate the positive changes they are creating for people and the environment.
We also provide senior health economics expertise to a range of decision-making and policy-making committees in Wales including Health Technology Wales, the all-Wales Medicines Strategy Group and the Evidence Based Procurement Board.