Health Economics Network
The Health Economics Network is a professional community within the Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts (AphA), bringing together people who develop, use, commission, or want to better understand health economic evidence across health and care.
We Bring Together
Practising health economists working in the NHS, consultancy, academia, and industry Analysts and researchers who want to build health economics capability or transition into specialist roles Commissioners, policymakers, and system leaders who rely on economic evidence to inform complex decisions
Organisations that generate, commission, or interpret health economic analyses
Our Ambition
Our ambition is to demystify health economics, facilitate knowledge sharing, strengthen professional practice, and ensure economic evidence is understood, trusted, and used effectively in public sector decision-making.
Community
Whether you are technically minded, interested in developing your expertise, interested in supporting or improving local decision making, our Network offers a supportive space to learn, contribute, and build confidence and capability.
Our Aims
Health economics is increasingly expected to underpin business cases, service redesign, and commissioning decisions across the health system.
At the same time:
Demand for health economic evidence continues to grow, while capacity and capability remain limited
Understanding of what constitutes good, proportionate health economics varies widely
Analysts may want to develop skills but lack clear pathways, confidence, or peer support
Commissioners need economic evidence but may be unsure how to specify, assess, or interpret it effectively
There remains a disconnect between technical analysis and practical decision-making needs
As expectations around value for money, affordability, and evidence-based decision-making increase, health economics is no longer an ‘optional extra’. Yet systems have not yet built the consistent capability needed to meet that demand.
The Health Economics Network exists to meet this need by:
Supporting skills development, training sessions and confidence-building
Applied health economics methods sharing
Encouraging shared learning and openness
Improving dialogue between evidence producers and evidence users
Raising the overall quality, relevance, and usability of health economic evidence in the public sector
Hosted By
Sponsored By
Member Profiles
Nicholas Swart
Co-Chair
Over 10+ years as a health economist, Nick has a wealth of experience developing and reviewing health economic evidence for drugs, devices and services across a broad spectrum of indications and disease areas. He has developed cost effectiveness, cost utility, and budget impact models informed by pragmatic, targeted and systematic literature reviews. His work has been used for payer communication tools, presented to decision makers, and published in peer reviewed journals. Nick is attuned to the evidence needs of MedTech companies, NHS providers and commissioners, and Technology Appraisal bodies such as NICE.
Saul Stevens
Co-Chair
Saul Stevens is a Research Assistant in Health Economics with the Peninsula Technology Assessment Group (PenTAG) at the University of Exeter. His primary role involves supporting health technology assessments (HTAs) that inform decision making by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
Saul’s research interests centre on innovation and medical technology, with a particular focus on the economic evaluation of MedTech interventions. He is especially interested in how methodological approaches to how economic evaluation can be adapted to reflect the complexity of medical technologies and to establish the real world impact of health technology commissioning decisions.
Before joining PenTAG, Saul worked for five years as a consultant supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the medical technology sector with evidence generation. During this time, he led a range of mixed-method evaluation and health economic projects commissioned by regional and national healthcare organisations.
Anna Buylova
Co- Chair
Dr Anna Buylova is Head of Health Economics at the South London Health Innovation Network (HIN), bringing over a decade of expertise in health economic evaluation and decision modelling. She specializes in methodologies for study design, cost-effectiveness analysis, and measuring socio-economic inequalities in healthcare access. Anna has extensive experience supporting the NHS in adopting innovative and cost-efficient technologies, including digital health and AI solutions, through rigorous economic assessments such as cost-utility and budget impact modelling. Previously, she worked at the Health Economics Unit, where she led projects funded by the NHS AI Lab and Healthcare Awards. Passionate about leveraging NHS data and advanced statistical methods, Anna aims to identify models of care that deliver the best value for money and accelerate innovation adoption.
Rachel Hunter
Co-Chair
Professor Rachael Hunter is a prominent figure in the field of health economics, currently serving as the head of the Health Economics Analysis and Research methods Team (HEART) at University College London (UCL). Her expertise lies in the economic evaluations of complex interventions, particularly in areas such as criminal justice, mental health, and maternity settings. She is also the co-director of the Health Economics Policy Lab (HEPL) at UCL, which aims to enhance the visibility and collaboration of health economics within the institution. Hunter’s professional background includes working as a performance manager at South London and Maudsley Mental Health Trust and providing policy, strategic business, and health economic advice to various government departments.