Successfully Scaling Innovation in the NHS

In Against the Odds: Successfully scaling innovation in the NHS, the Innovation Unit and The Health Foundation identity 10  different UK innovations.  The authors look at various case studies to explore how these insights build on, and challenge, existing wisdom in the NHS.

Image source: http://www.innovationunit.org

The key findings of the report include:

• The ‘adopters’ of innovation need greater recognition and support. The current system primarily rewards innovators, but those taking up innovations often need time, space and resources to implement and adapt an innovation in their own setting.
• It needs to be easier for innovators to set up dedicated organisations or groups to drive innovation at scale. Scaling innovation can be a full-time job, and difficult to do alongside front-line service delivery. Dedicated organisations are often needed to consciously and strategically drive scaling efforts, including when innovators ‘spin out’ from the NHS.
• System leaders need to take more holistic and sophisticated approaches to scaling. Targets and tariffs are not a magic bullet for scaling; while they can help, they don’t create the intrinsic and sustained commitment required to replicate new ideas at scale. Different approaches are needed, including articulating national and local health care priorities in ways that create strategic opportunities for innovators, and using commissioning frameworks to enable, rather than hinder, the sustainable spread of innovations.

 

The full report can be found here

NHS and social care data: off-shoring and the use of public cloud services

This guidance sets out expectations for health and care organisations who want to use cloud services or data off-shoring to store patient information | NHS Digital

These documents from NHS Digital aim to ensure that organisations know how to use cloud services safely and securely, particularly in relation to the introduction of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The standards will enable NHS organisations to benefit from the flexibility and cost savings associated with the use of cloud facilities.

In Brief:

• NHS and Social care providers may use cloud computing services for NHS data. Data must only be hosted within the UK – European Economic Area (EEA), a country deemed adequate by the European Commission, or in the US where covered by Privacy Shield.
• Senior Information Risk Owners (SIROs) locally should be satisfied about appropriate security arrangements (using National cyber security essentials as a guide) in conjunction with Data Protection Officers and Caldicott Guardians.
• Help and advice from the Information Commissioner’s Office is available and regularly updated.
• Changes to data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from 25 May 2018, puts strict restrictions on the transfer of personal data, particularly when this transfer is outside the European Union. The ICO also regularly updates its GDPR Guidance.
• NHS Digital has provided some detailed guidance documents to support health and social care organisations.

The following documents provide more detailed guidance:

• Open the health and social care cloud security good practice guide.
• Open the health and social care cloud risk framework.
• Open the health and social care data risk model.
• Open the health and social care cloud security – one page overview.

 

 

Adoption and spread of innovation in the NHS

This report, commissioned by the Academic Health Science Network, looks at opportunities to accelerate the adoption of service innovation in the NHS, drawing on findings from eight case studies of successful spread of innovation in the NHS | Kings Fund

From new communication technologies for patients with long-term conditions, to new care pathways in liver disease diagnosis, to new checklists for busy A&E departments, the report details the highs and lows of an innovator’s journey through the NHS.

While thousands of patients are now receiving new innovative treatments for arthritis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and chronic liver disease, thanks to successful innovations, the report outlines the significant barriers that stand in innovators’ paths.

The case studies reveal common themes:

• Providers need to be able to select and tailor innovations that deliver the greatest value given local challenges and work in the local context.
• Fragmentation of NHS services remains a barrier to adoption and spread of innovation, making it harder to develop shared approaches and transmit learning across sites.
• New innovations may appear simple to introduce but can have a domino effect – triggering a series of changes to diagnosis and treatment, revealing new patient needs and resulting in big changes to staff and patient roles. That’s why staff need time and resources to implement them.
• As long as the NHS sets aside less than 0.1% of available resources for the adoption and spread of innovation, a small fraction of the funds available for innovation itself, the NHS’s operating units will struggle to adopt large numbers of innovations and rapidly improve productivity.

Full report: Adoption and spread of innovation in the NHS

 

Growing innovative models of health, care and support for adults

This briefing explains that innovative, often small-scale models of health, social care and support for adults could be scaled up to benefit as many people as possible | Social Care Institute for Excellence

Based on research conducted during the spring of 2017, this briefing from the Social Care Institute for Excellence offers the following key messages:

• Innovation is needed more than ever as challenges grow. Innovation does not only mean technological breakthroughs or large restructures. New and better ways of delivering relationship-based care are needed, and already exist, but are inconsistently implemented or poorly scaled.

 

• For innovation to flourish,  better ways to help people bring good ideas from the margins into core business need to be found . The keys to success are:
  • a shared ambition to embed person- and community-centred ways of working across the system, using the best available tools and evidence
  • co-production: planning with the people who have the greatest stake in our services from the beginning
  • a new model of leadership which is collaborative and convening
  • investment and commissioning approaches which transfer resources from low quality, low outcomes into approaches which work effectively
  • effective outcomes monitoring and use of data to drive change
  • a willingness to learn from experience.

The report also has a series of recommendations for Local and National Government.

Full report: Growing innovative models of health, care and support for adults