MAJOR FUNDING FOR FRONTLINE NHS INNOVATIONS TO IMPROVE PATIENT CARE

The Regional Innovation Fund 2009/10 held by NHS West Midlands, was launched in May last year by the Department of Health of £250m over five years.  Like all Strategic Health Authorities, NHS West Midlands has a new legal duty to promote innovation.

The Fund is open to applications from individual staff or teams in any organisation across the NHS in the West Midlands to support them taking forward innovation and speed up the implementation of ideas.

All NHS organisations across the region were invited to bid for the fund to be invested in a range of ideas that could include inventions, existing innovations that could be adapted or rolled out to other organisations or the adoption of already proven ways of working.

NHS Trusts were encouraged to apply against a number of key categories including those that tackle the challenges identified in the regional clinically-led vision, proposals that combine improved quality with financial benefits and are clear on what they will achieve.

Over 50 applications were received from NHS organisations across the region, which were judged by a professional expert panel coordinated by MidTECH, the Innovation Hub for the West Midlands region.  All applications underwent a rigorous selection procedure, which included assessment by local clinicians and by independent experts from outside the region. A detailed scoring system ensured that applications met the Investing for Health agenda, the strategic health priorities identified by the SHA and represented value for money. In addition applications were checked against national data and activities to ensure that the proposed local innovations were unique to the West Midlands and eligible for an award.

Following the first round of application to the Regional Innovation Fund, the Assessment Panel met in November and made awards to eight projects. These include a project to improve the lives of people in the region with long term health conditions:-

A Dragons Den made up of local clinicians will meet twice a year to evaluate and recommend the development of ideas proposed by NHS staff to improve the quality of care of patients with Long Term Conditions. This new approach will systematically evaluate and implement great ideas that would otherwise never reach fruition.

A RIF award will improve the care of adolescents with mental health problems:-

BRIDGE addresses the care gap for vulnerable adolescents. Currently adult mental healthcare services and services for children do not meet their needs. This new approach aims to avoid these young people appearing in crisis and worse mental health in later years.

A RIF grant has contributed to a special project to address the needs of vulnerable patients with Dementia:-

A West Midlands Hospital Trust is leading this project in collaboration with the National Institute and the SHA. It aims to address the poor quality experience for those with Dementia, many of whom become more confused as a result of admission to an acute setting. It will lead to a consistent management and caring approach and provide a vehicle for quality monitoring and review of care alongside patient and carer feedback.

Peter Spilsbury, Director of Strategy and Regulation, NHS West Midlands said:  “Little growth in public sector spending in the coming years means that the NHS needs to find new ways to continue to achieve better outcomes for patients and use funds more efficiently.

“The NHS in the West Midlands employs some of the most innovative people on the planet.  We have set up this fund to support staff to get their ideas into practice quickly and encourage them to come forward with proposals new ways to improve care for patients. The overwhelming response in the first year of the fund demonstrates the commitment and dedication from NHS staff to continual improvements in patient care.  Innovation is not just about technology. It is about devising and adopting new ways of improving people’s health and wellbeing.”

Nominations for the next round of the Innovation Fund will be invited on the SHA website from April 2010 onwards.

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For further information please contact the Communications Team, Tel: 0121 695 2252 or email communicationsandpublicaffairs@westmidlands.nhs.uk

For further information on individual projects please speak to the communications team in the relevant organisations.

Editor’s notes

1. NHS West Midlands is the Strategic Health Authority for the NHS in the West Midlands and provides strategic direction for healthcare services across Birmingham, Solihull, the Black Country, Coventry, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Herefordshire and Shropshire.  It works with 44 local NHS organisations to ensure that the £8.5 billion spent on health care in the West Midlands delivers the best services and value for money for the 5.4 million people living in the region.

1. Investing for Health is the regional strategy for health and health services in the West Midlands.  It was developed in consultation with clinicians and is the regional vision of the Department of Health’s Next Stage Review.  It identified 7 challenges if we are to create a health service that moves from ‘good to great’.  These are:

• Widening health inequalities
• Variability in quality and safety
• Difficult to navigate
• Low public confidence
• Too little prevention
• Low return on investment
• Cost pressures and opportunity costs.

1. MidTECH – NHS Innovations West Midlands is part of a national network of NHS Innovation Hubs, established by the Department of Health to identify, protect and commercialise innovative ideas from the NHS.  This includes helping to patent or otherwise protect the ideas, linking up with industries that may help to commercialise them – and aiming to ensure that a share of the profits go to the inventor and the NHS Trust where the projects were born.