National report into innovation hub programme complements local evaluation

The RAND Europe evaluation report for the Health Foundation Adopting Innovation Programme has been published, complementing our local evaluation of the Dorset Innovation Hub (DIH).

The RAND report provides a range of insights for those involved in the impact of innovation adoption. The report describes the progress of the four local healthcare system innovation hubs and draws attention to the effort needed to build and strengthen innovation ecosystems. Hubs demonstrated added value within challenging 'complex innovation-implementation ecosystems'. 

To address these NHS challenges and the limited time and resources available to hubs to achieve ambitious programme goals were nevertheless able to provide added value by: 

• Providing information dissemination and raising awareness in the local system e.g. developing educational offers
• Catalysing partnerships by connecting key players involved in innovation activities by networking and partnership building
• Providing bespoke innovator support
• Gaining public and patient engagement in innovation activities. 

The Health Innovation Wessex evaluation of Dorset Innovation Hub found that innovation adoption and culture change is complex, needing more time and continued input from the integrated care system to accelerate progress as a mainstream activity. Several factors supported this finding, including: 

• People make change happen: the experience and innovation expertise of the DIH leadership team supported the Hub’s progress
• Communicating change makes change happen: DIH developed an effective network of social media communicators to deliver its activity and thought leadership
• The DIH innovation education programme helped to mobilise knowledge
• Measuring the acceleration of innovation implementation can be challenging
• The Hub addressed priorities for social innovation, such as nutrition in ageing people, and this initiative continues to evolve
• The value of patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) in innovation adoption: PPIE representatives were embedded in all DIH activities. 

Nicola Bent, Chief Executive Officer at Health Innovation Wessex, said “Achieving greater impact and value from faster and more extensive adoption of health innovation is critical to delivering the three shifts articulated by government."

"Our decade’s experience of innovating in the NHS has demonstrated that innovation is a team sport, and it works best when all the necessary players are enabled to play their specific, but coordinated, roles. It is great to see the journey the DIH has been on and we are delighted to have played a part in its work so far.”

Read the full and short reports on the Health Innovation Wessex insight library

Read the RAND Europe report