The Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust Innovation Hub
What are we trying to do?
Through its ‘Adopting Innovation’ programme, The Health Foundation has funded four ‘Innovation hubs’, led by NHS provider organisations in England. Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) hosts one of these Hubs. The aim of the MFT Hub is to drive the identification, prioritisation, progression and evaluation of local adaptation/adoption of innovations. Initially, digital innovations will be used as an exemplar. The overall aim of the Hub is to improve health outcomes for the populations which MFT serves.
As part of the Hub collaboration, we will undertake a mixed methods evaluation to understand how innovations in healthcare are developed and spread. The evaluation will:
- ascertain the priorities of the Hub, its key aims and how these address the needs of the local population;
- explore how context has affected the uptake and spread of the innovations;
- ascertain the drivers and barriers to implementation;
- explore how the hub partners work together and with other stakeholders across the local health and care system, to support the implementation of innovations;
- explore the mechanisms through which the Hub influences the scale-up of research-based innovations across a region, such as existing networks and Hub processes;
- describe how learning, skill and capacity building for innovation has been provided via the hubs;
- describe innovation activity over time, through analysis of aggregated data;
- describe and compare the implementation of innovations via the MFT hub;
- measure local impact.
Why is this important?
International evidence consistently demonstrates slow, incomplete and inconsistent translation of research into practice and eventual patient and population benefit, representing a significant opportunity cost. Funders are increasingly concerned about this problem.
A promising solution is the development of collaborative networks bringing together academics, policymakers and health professionals, to foster partnership working between producers and end-users of research and thus improve the uptake of research knowledge in clinical practice. Previously conducted research studies show that partnership working improves the translation of research into practical innovation, but significant research gaps remain in relation to the operation of these networks, and the benefits as they mature. In particular, we still do not know how innovation implemented in so-called 'pilot' sites can be spread more widely.
The Innovation Hubs will act as centres of expertise and support within provider organisations to help them, and their local health systems, become better adopters of innovation. In doing this, health care organisations create long-lasting impact for patients and staff.
Understanding how such hubs function and the extent to which they can deliver what they are set up to do is essential to determining the benefits of the hub approach.
How will we do it?
The study will be a mixed methods evaluation with an embedded case study design. The study has four components:
- Documentary review
A review of documents and other material related to the implementation of the innovations at MFT.
- Quantitative analysis of activity data
Descriptive analysis of any quantitative aggregated activity data routinely collected by the hub to monitor and evaluate their projects, such as the percentage of eligible sites.
- Qualitative interview study
We will interview people who have a role in managing, supporting or delivering the innovations. Interviewees will be based at MFT and partner organisations. The sampling strategy will be purposive and we are aiming to interview people working directly to support or deliver each innovation and others with roles at MFT, partner organisations or otherwise related to the hub activity. A thematic analysis of the interviews will be conducted.
- Stakeholder survey
The stakeholder survey will be undertaken at two time points 12 months apart. The survey will be administered to the NHS staff (both clinical and managerial) involved in the actual rollout of the selected innovations in their organisations. The survey will comprise two main components namely, the Implementation Climate Scale (ICS) and the NoMAD questionnaire.
Who will we work with?
More information
Programme Manager