Innovation Health and Wealth

The report, Innovation Health and Wealth: accelerating adoption and diffusion in the NHS, recently published by the Department of Health, sets out a delivery agenda for spreading innovation at pace and scale throughout the NHS to improve outcomes for patients and deliver value for money.

The report requires all NHS organisations to build the actions set out into their planning processes, for 2012/13.

The actions are grouped into eight key themes:

• We should reduce variation in the NHS, and drive greater compliance with NICE guidance
• Working with industry, we should develop and publish better innovation uptake metrics, and more accessible evidence and information about new ideas
• We should establish a more systematic delivery mechanism for diffusion and collaboration within the NHS by building strong cross-boundary networks
• We should align organisational, financial and personal incentives and investment to reward and encourage innovation
• We should improve arrangements for procurement in the NHS to drive up quality and value, and to make the NHS a better place to do business
• We should bring about a major shift in culture within the NHS, and develop our people by ‘hard wiring’ innovation into training and education for managers and clinicians
• We should strengthen leadership in innovation at all levels of the NHS, set clearer priorities for innovation, and sharpen local accountability
• We should identify and mandate the adoption of high impact innovations in the NHS. This includes as action that requires the NHS to commission services in line with NICE-SCIE guidance on supporting people with dementia

Download the report and associated documentation below:

• Innovations health and wealth letter from David Nicholson
• Innovation Health and Wealth: accelerating adoption and diffusion in the NHS
• Summary of call for evidence and ideas report
• Plan for Growth announcement (PDF 1.7Mb)
• UK Life Sciences Strategy (PDF 2Mb)
• UK life sciences get government cash boost