Supporting post-pandemic priorities

The NHS Insights Prioritisation Programme (NIPP) was set up to accelerate the evaluation and implementation of promising innovations – selected for their potential to support the evolution of post-pandemic ways of working, build service resilience and deliver ongoing benefits to patients.

Working together to generate insights for ICSs

Launched in 2021 by NHS England and the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC), the programme invited local health innovation networks and National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaborations (NIHR ARCs) to bid for a share of £4.2m investment to test and evaluate promising innovation within their Integrated Care Systems (ICSs).

Individual health innovation networks were already linked with their corresponding local NIHR Applied Research Collaborations. NIPP presented an opportunity for them to work closely together on a specific project, benefitting from each other’s unique skills and links with system partners.

Each of the Health Innovation Network and NIHR ARC projects aimed to demonstrate a positive impact on health inequalities, focusing on four priority areas:

  • Remote consultation
  • Remote monitoring
  • New approaches to service delivery
  • Health and social care workforce innovation

The programme ran from November 2021 to March 2023. You can read the outcomes and learning from the programme in our summary report, which also includes valuable insights into how these innovations can be taken up in other health and care systems.

Read the NIPP programme report.

The NIPP projects

These are the 14 projects which ran across England, with links to the detailed reports on their findings.

HIN/ARC Collaboration Project title
Health Innovation East / ARC East of England Understanding implementation and impact of remote monitoring in Integrated Care Systems
Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex / ARC Kent, Surrey and Sussex Evaluating discharge to assess pathways across Kent, Surrey and Sussex
Health Innovation Manchester / ARC Greater Manchester Optimising access to targeted vaccination activity in Greater Manchester
Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria / ARC North East and North Cumbria Evaluating the impact of a video intervention to reduce opioid prescribing in primary care
UCL Partners Health Innovation / ARC North Thames Establishing Community Diagnostic Centres in London: learning from year one
Health Innovation North West Coast / ARC North West Coast Neonatal early supported transfer home
Imperial College Health Partners Health Innovation / ARC Northwest London Improving identification, early management and progression of chronic kidney disease
Health Innovation Network Oxford and Thames Valley / ARC Oxford and Thames Valley Evaluating the role of virtual transient ischaemic attack (TIA) outpatient clinics
Health Innovation Network South London / ARC South London Preparing a culturally tailored online diabetes self-management programme for evaluation and scale
Health Innovation Network South West / ARC South West Peninsula (PenARC) Evaluation of Community Assessment Treatment Units for frail patients
Health Innovation Wessex / ARC Wessex Implementing digital remote monitoring for people with frailty
Health Innovation Network West of England / ARC West Evaluating the effectiveness of the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme
Health Innovation Network West Midlands / ARC West Midlands Acute assessment and care, without hospital transfer, for older people
Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber / ARC Yorkshire and Humber Evaluation of (Community) Unscheduled Care Coordination Hubs to reduce hospital attendance

Resources

Remote technology in health and care – what’s the way forward?

  • Charlotte Walton, Health Innovation Network Strategy Director

Post-pandemic priorities: reducing impact on hospitals

The perfect partnership: ARCs and AHSNs

  • Dr Yu (Maggie) Fu, formerly a joint Senior Research Fellow, working jointly between the Applied Research Collaboration and AHSN for the North East and North Cumbria (now known as Health Innovation Network North East and North Cumbria), and now a Tenure Track Fellow based at the University of Liverpool.

Episode 1: Digital monitoring

Featuring Dr David Kryl, Director of Insight at Health Innovation Wessex and implementation lead for ARC Wessex, Dr Jennifer Lynch, project lead at ARC East of England and Tracey Marriott, Director of Clinical Innovation Adoption, Health Innovation Oxford and Thames Valley.

Episode 2: Health inequalities

With Aoife Molloy, NHS England’s senior clinical advisor for Health and Equality and Professor Jo Dumville, deputy lead for evaluation at ARC Greater Manchester. Plus Sophie Lowry, part of ARC South London’s Implementation & Involvement team and Implementation & Involvement Manager for HIN South London, and Sandra Tomlinson, facilitator for the HEAL-D programme.

Episode 3: Reducing impact on hospitals – part one

Dr Louise Hall, Evaluation Lead at Health Innovation South West, Professor Suzanne Mason, Deputy Director and urgent care theme lead at ARC Yorkshire & Humber and national ARC lead for urgent and emergency care, and Professor Dan Lasserson, the only Professor of Ambulatory Care in the UK and ARC West Midlands’ acute care interfaces theme lead.

Episode 4: Reducing impact on hospitals – part two

Professor Dame Caroline Watkins, the UK’s only nursing professor of stroke care and implementation lead for ARC North West Coast, and Stuart Jeffrey of ARC Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

Episode 5: NHS Programme Manager for HIN Commissions, Tayo Owodunni

In this final episode, we hear from some of those who’ve contributed and get reaction and comment from Tayo Owodunni, the NHS Programme Manager for HIN Commissions, specifically the Innovation, Research & Life Sciences Group.

Evaluation

An independent evaluation was carried out between February and May 2023. This retrospective review captured learning from the programme’s delivery and offered recommendations for post-NIPP activities and future innovation programmes within the NHS.

Read the evaluation

The NIPP builds on a collaboration between the Beneficial Changes Network and the AAC. To find out more, visit the AAC website.

Learn more about the NIHR Applied Research Collaborations and find your local NIHR ARC on the NIHR ARCs national webpage.

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