- £1.7m available for up to 23 clinical teams to test and develop innovative ideas and approaches to improve health and social care delivery or the way people manage their own health care in the UK.
- We are particularly interested in applications that focus on supporting the workforce to improve the quality of care.
- Each team will receive up to £75,000 of funding, over 15 months, to put their ideas into practice and improve patient care.
- Applications are now open and must be completed online by midday, Monday 9 July 2018.*
Our Innovating for Improvement programme supports clinical teams to test and develop their innovative ideas and approaches, put them into practice and gather evidence about how their innovation improves quality.
In this round, we are particularly interested in applications from teams with innovative projects that focus on supporting the workforce to improve the quality of care. Specific areas of interest relating to workforce innovation are as follows:
- Innovations that support the physical and mental wellbeing of staff and contribute to the improved care of patients.
- Innovations that focus on improved team working and relationships.
- Innovative use of technology or automation to address workforce challenges.
We will support up to 23 projects with up to £75,000 in funding to test and develop innovative approaches to improve health care delivery and/or self-management of health and social care, through redesign of processes, practices, services and models of delivery.
The Innovating for Improvement programme is open to applicants from across the UK. Teams need to demonstrate a clearly identified and convincing problem that they want to address, ie a significant quality issue that is relevant to UK health care.
Teams should demonstrate how their projects will lead to direct benefits or impact on patients within the programme timescale of 15 months, including a set-up phase of up to 3 months beginning in January 2019.
Innovation is about doing things differently or doing new things to make positive change. The Health Foundation recognises that innovation takes different forms. Your proposed project must be innovative in one of the following ways:
- Descriptor 1: No previous history in any context – it is genuinely new or novel.
- Descriptor 2: Transferred into the health space from another sector such as another public service body, another industry, academic research or a non-health-related field.
- Descriptor 3: Transferred into the UK from an overseas health care system.
- Descriptor 4: Transferred or adapted from one health care setting to another: for example, adult care to paediatrics, or social care to health care.
How to apply
If you are interested in applying for the Innovating for Improvement programme, please go through the following steps to complete your application.
1. Important supporting information
All applicants must read the following documents in full before completing the screening tool to access the online application form.
2. The application form
You must complete the screening tool to assess whether your proposed project meets the criteria of the Innovating for Improvement programme. Once this is completed, you will be able to access our online application form. [link to screening tool]
The application form will require you to supply information to meet all the selection criteria outlined in the Call for applications.
Applicants must also provide a declaration of signatures from the lead organisation. This needs to be completed and uploaded to Section 8 of the online application.
All applications must be completed and submitted via our online system AIMS.
Full guidance on accessing, completing and submitting your application via AIMS can be found in the Applicants user guide. We recommend that you keep a copy of this manual to hand to refer to while you complete your application.
3. Application video
For the first time, we are asking applicants to record a short video introducing their project. We hope this will help you to communicate your project idea to us and ensure that we understand it. The video does not need to be of professional quality and can be produced simply using a smartphone or camera.
Your video should last no longer than two minutes and must provide a brief explanation of your project, describing what you are aiming to do. We have produced some guidance to help you. You will need to upload your video to YouTube (this can be done privately if you wish) and include a link to it in your application.
4. Information call
We will hold an information call on Wednesday 13 June 2018. Please register your details if you would like to join the call. Joining instructions and the exact time will be sent to you in advance of the call.
Information calls offer applicants the opportunity to hear more about the programme and ask questions to clarify understanding. You are strongly encouraged to participate in the information call.
5. Deadlines
The deadline for online applications is midday, Monday 9 July 2018. We will not accept submissions after this date.
*The Health Foundation also reserves the right to close ahead of this deadline if the programme is oversubscribed.
Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed w/c 22 and 29 October and 5 November 2018. Interviewed applicants will be advised of the outcome by mid-November 2018.
Please note: If you have any queries about the programme or application process, email: Innovating.enquiries@health.org.uk.
Article Source: https://www.health.org.uk/programmes/innovating-improvement
