IES evaluation identifies key success factors in supporting adoption of healthcare innovations in the NHS

IES News

14 Mar 2018

IES has today published new research outlining the key conditions for success identified through a national accelerator. The evaluation, commissioned by the Health Foundation, highlights the impact of the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) in encouraging greater uptake of healthcare innovations and bringing positive outcomes for patient and population benefit.

The NIA is intended to help create conditions and cultural change to generate faster and more systematic take-up of healthcare innovations across the NHS. Conducted by IES in partnership with researchers from York Health Economics Consortium, the evaluation identified the common conditions essential for adoption and spread of healthcare innovations, as well the key barriers, challenges and how to overcome them. In doing so, the report offers valuable insights for health innovators and entrepreneurs hoping to scale innovations. These innovations could in turn lead to NHS service improvement and wider benefits to global healthcare as innovations scale internationally.

Several conditions for successful healthcare innovation scaling were identified in the report. Having a supportive network of contacts that can open doors to key influencers and patient involvement were crucial enablers for all innovations. Likewise, harnessing insights of mentors, expert networking and demonstrating how innovations support national and local agendas among NHS users were also highlighted as key conditions for success. Overcoming barriers to innovation diffusion in a challenging financial climate requires an agile mindset, a willingness to revise and adapt innovations, and skills in engaging clinicians to persuade them of the benefits.

The report offers conservative estimates of the potential for significant savings to be made to the UK’s health and social care system, drawn out in the evaluation’s economic impact assessment. These savings may be generated through reduced incidence and demand on healthcare, lower administration costs, prevention of ill health, and reduced GP visits and A&E attendance.

The key findings of the report are distilled in an accompanying infographic, available here. The infographic contains insights on the key conditions for success of the NIA, the barriers to scaling innovations, users’ views and a summary of the NIA in numbers.

Read the full report