Adopting Innovation A programme supporting health care providers to create the conditions that will enable faster and more effective uptake of innovations and improvements.
- The Health Foundation’s Adopting Innovation programme aimed to help NHS providers build knowledge, skills and confidence to successfully adopt and adapt innovations.
- The Adopting Innovation programme funded four innovation hubs in England to act as centres of expertise and support within NHS provider organisations to help them, and their local health systems, become better adopters of innovation.
- The programme ran from 2021 to 2024.
About the programme
The Health Foundation launched the Adopting Innovation Programme in 2021 to help providers within the NHS become better adopters of innovation. We funded four innovation hubs in Bradford & Craven, Dorset, Manchester and Cambridgeshire & Peterborough with £475,000 for two and a half years across NHS provider organisations in England.
The programme was inspired by research that showed overcoming the spread challenge – successfully taking up and adapting an innovation in a new setting – is a continuing endeavour for the NHS.
Through the Adopting Innovation programme, we supported local health systems across England in facilitating effective adoption of health care innovations. In doing this, health care organisations can create long-lasting impact for patients and patient care.
The Innovation Unit, an external learning partner, was commissioned to provide bespoke capacity-building and learning support in the form of one-to-one hub coaching and cross-hub peer-to-peer engagement. Each hub also appointed a local evaluator to monitor progress and measure local impact.
RAND Europe was commissioned by the Health Foundation to conduct an independent evaluation of the whole programme and four hubs.
Programme learning
The Adopting Innovation programme has provided a unique opportunity to observe what happens when a novel catalyst for innovation, in the form of a hub, is introduced into a complex innovation-implementation ecosystem.
Each of the four hubs established themselves as an important presence within their local health care setting, tailoring their offer to a range of distinct contexts, while also supporting the adoption of innovation within their local innovation ecosystem.
Through the course of the programme, hubs have developed and matured. They've adapted to a range of challenges locally, building the case for long-term sustainability, and have been absorbed within each of their local systems.
Hubs played an important role in their systems:
- Providing central coordination of innovation activities, in addition to serving as a resource for innovation in their local system.
- Disseminating information and raising awareness about innovation.
- Catalysing partnerships by connecting and convening key players involved in innovation activities.
Critically, hubs played an important role in fostering a culture of innovation. For innovation adoption to be successful, a range of capabilities and approaches are needed, such as co-production – requiring the NHS to make key decisions and work in equal partnership with citizens and staff – or the creation of learning networks for people across the system to share insights and learnings.
The Adopting Innovation Wheel was developed and designed by the Innovation Unit in collaboration with our four Adopting Innovation Hubs. It highlights the four essential categories of skills and capabilities required to support the uptake of innovation (see Figure 1: The Adoption of Innovation Wheel).
