Innovation Ecosystem Programme (IEP)

Background to the Innovation Ecosystem Programme

The NHS has an illustrious history of research and innovation. Innovation transforms patients’ lives and brings significant benefits to the UK economy and society. Innovation is a cornerstone of the NHS. The IEP is an NHS England managed programme that aims to boost the research and innovation environment in the UK, enabling patients and clinicians to access proven technologies faster than ever before.

The programme began in summer 2023, led by Roland Sinker, Chief Executive at Cambridge University Hospitals. It focused on how the NHS can work with wider health innovation and research partner organisations to better enable research, innovation development, and the adoption and spread of innovation in the NHS. Its emphasis is on supporting prevention and early diagnosis to keep England at the forefront of medical advancements.

The role of Health Innovation Wessex: Influencing the IEP Workforce recommendations

In December 2023, the health innovation networks (HINs) for Wessex, West of England, and the South West delivered an introductory Rapid Insight event to support the IEP Workstream 1: Learning by Doing. This was attended by 76 people from 32 organisations across health innovation networks, integrated care boards (ICBs), provider trusts, and academia. The findings from this event formed the foundation for three learning collaboratives in January and February 2024, which had a total attendance of 132 people and explored five real-world case studies. These events aimed to deepen overarching IEP knowledge and understanding of opportunities, as well as barriers to the spread and adoption of innovation, using our wide-ranging capabilities to identify solutioning ideas. 

• Learning Collaborative 1: 50 attendees with 29 organisations represented, two ARC representatives, 70% HIN representation.
• Learning Collaborative 2: 41 attendees with 24 organisations represented, three ARC representatives, 60% HIN representation.
• Learning Collaborative 3: 41 attendees with 25 organisations represented, five ARC representatives, 45% HIN representation.

Following these learning collaboratives, a final report was produced and included:

• 14 recommendations, broken down into:
  • four for the IEP blueprint (Workstream 3).
  • six national enabling activities.
  • four local enabling activities.
• five practical ideas for overcoming innovation adoption barriers.

Given the success of these learning collaboratives, NHS England’s Innovation, Research, Life Sciences and Strategy (IRLSS) team made use of Health Innovation Wessex’s Rapid Insight framework to explore the future implementation of the recommendations, prior to the publication of the IEP workforce recommendations.

Health Innovation Wessex and Health Innovation West of England delivered a further Rapid Insight event with 94 attendees in October 2024 to provide colleagues from HINs, ICBs, provider trusts and academia a unique opportunity to hear more about the progression of the IEP. The session saw extensive representation from across the health system and offered a wealth of insights into the challenges and opportunities of implementing the emergent innovation ecosystem recommendations.   

Our impact

Through the learning collaboratives and the Rapid Insight events, we created an environment where colleagues were able to be open, honest, and respectful of other views and options, asking curious questions of each other, suggesting solutions to overcome challenges, being bold and brave in our thinking.

The development of this inclusive learning community enabled innovation adoption challenges and solutions to be surfaced. Our collective insights and findings have contributed to the recommendations detailed in the IEP report, which will have a direct effect on NHS long-term planning and workforce. 

In addition, delivery of these events demonstrated the Health Innovation Wessex's capabilities to:

• Convene partners from across the national innovation ecosystem.
• Connect with our local systems through our embedded ways of working.
• Gather insights and assimilate findings into usable, translatable outputs.
• Influence policy development. 
• Deliver high quality events.

Health Innovation Wessex also supported a secondment to the IRLSS Policy and Strategy team between May – December 2024 to enable the translation and knowledge mobilisation of the findings from the learning. 

Our outputs from the project, along with related links, can be found under the resources tab on the right side of this page. 

To find out more about how we can help your workforce and organisation create the right conditions for innovation, please visit our Work With Us page.