Innovation shared

In late 2016, 44 geographical areas of England published Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) setting out how health and care will be delivered within their local areas by 2021, to achieve the aims of the Five Year Forward View, to restore and maintain financial balance, and to deliver core access and quality standards for patients.

The report is not a commentary on whether there should be STPs but on how they are set up to deliver the level, pace and scale of change required.

The aims of this study are to:

Generate clarity within the finance community of what constitutes innovation, and determine a language that participants can comfortably engage with

Understand the nature of innovation in finance, and how it differs from other professional groups

Identify what it takes for finance leaders to innovate individually as well as organisationally - particularly, what cultural issues are a feature across the NHS and what issues are particular to finance

Identify what is needed in order for NHS finance teams to become more innovative, and whether the need varies depending on the nature and size of the organisation
Read the full paper

This joint position paper between the National Institute for Health Research and LSBU summarises the results of an inquiry workshop with research, clinical and managerial leaders in June 2016. The inquiry focused on how to create a culture of innovation and research in complex systems.

For the purposes of this paper, ‘systems’ relate to health and social care systems organised around populations and places. For these systems it is not clear who leads the system, or how they differ in terms of capacity and culture, or how they address the issues of generating an innovation and research culture.

Innovation is a situated practice, balancing individual and collective capacities, best realised through network and collaborative relationships. There are significant challenges with moving from local innovation, where there is more tacit knowledge, to systems-wide innovation.

We considered the role of disruptive and incremental innovation in systems, and the underlying cultures that create readiness at policy, system and team levels.

This longitudinal study demonstrates that overall there is much evidence that the Darzi programme has practically and intuitively shown Fellows how to think first and then act differently for alternative outcomes. Fellows are much more proactive than reactive because of the programme. Many responses carried a central message of empowered, enlightened and highly skilled individuals who are actively and uniquely challenging the status quo. Thus, there is clear evidence that the Darzi programme has created a plethora of systems thinkers and doers, with a greater understanding of how to use data to bring about system change.

A picture emerged of often bold individuals with a determination to actively instigate change across London and beyond. There is evidence that many Fellows are emerging as leaders, acting as catalysts for sustainable change in the healthcare environment. By any reasonable measurement, the Darzi programme continues to be successful with learning and behavioural change sustained after the Fellowship year.

This report was commission by Sir Thomas Hughes-Hallett, founder of HelpForce, in March 2017 to review the current evidence on the effectiveness, deployment and impact of volunteers in the NHS, to support the organisation’s work in maximising the potential of volunteering in health and social care. This report’s remit was to pull together evidence to help answer the following questions:

• What volunteer / lay roles are effective in health and care?
• What do we know about the effective recruitment, management and deployment of volunteers (in any setting)?
• What evidence is there about the impact of volunteers in health and social care, within England health and social care organisations, and from voluntary sector initiatives working into health and social care?