Diffusion of innovations through Health Innovation Networks: the adoption and spread of Inclisiran
What did we do?
The overall aim was to understand how inclisiran was adopted and spread in the NHS to understand its implementation and uptake across the 15 Health Innovation Network (HIN) areas (previously called Academic Health Science Networks). By using inclisiran as an example and exploring its implementation at multiple case study sites, we've increased the understanding of how HINs facilitate the adoption and spread of innovations within the NHS.
Why is it important?
English health policy has increasingly emphasised innovation, speeding up the adoption and uptake of new products and closer working between the NHS and industry. The 2019 NHS Long Term Plan set out ambitions to ‘speed up the path from innovation to business as usual’ and ‘speed up the pipeline for delivering innovations in the NHS, to get proven, affordable innovations to patients faster’.
The Health Innovation Networks delivered a national lipids optimisation programme, running from 2020-2023. The programme aimed to improve the management of cholesterol, increase the detection of those with Familial Hypercholesterolaemia and optimise the use of all medicines for patients on the cholesterol management pathway. To meet this aim, the Health Innovation Networks worked in partnership with the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) rapid uptake pathway (RUP) lipid management programme, aiming to improve patient access to appropriate medicines to enable lipid treatment using the NICE-recommended clinical pathway, with a focus on secondary prevention and including novel therapies.
Inclisiran was one of the first products to be fast tracked by the NHS AAC, and was included in the NICE-endorsed lipid management pathway. A population health management approach to implementing inclisiran was taken, and HINs supported this by acting as the ‘delivery partners’ for its deployment.
Our study of this new type of agreement helped us to understand how a new treatment was deployed and delivered into a system of care.
How did we do it?
We used a mixed methods multiple case study approach to evaluate the spread and uptake of inclisiran. This included:
- A review of documents related to the implementation of inclisiran within each HIN locality
- A time series analysis of the uptake of Inclisiran using routinely available prescribing data
- A qualitative process evaluation of the adoption and spread of inclisiran in England within each HIN locality.
We drew on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), and other Implementaion Science frameworks to guide our data collection and analysis. CFIR is widely used in implementation research to guide the systematic assessment of barriers and enablers to adoption and spread.
Who did we work with?
More information
Programme Manager
Gill Rizzello
gill.rizzello@manchester.ac.uk