Our Future Challenges programme has been a ground-breaking new way to support innovators and local partners to pilot innovations and validate them in a real-world setting.
Our key aim of the programme was to generate evidence to support the wider introduction of promising new innovations to address an identified health and care challenge.
The process
The programme followed an open innovation methodology, and started by identifying key health and care challenges that might benefit from innovative solutions. Working with our network members and key stakeholders, including clinicians and commissioners, we identified and launched challenges on the following themes:
- Keeping Healthy at Home
- Young People and Mental Health Resilience
We issued a call on both themes and invited innovators to apply.
Our expert panel chose the most promising solutions from a wide range of submissions, which were then paired with local health and care providers keen to trial them. We also identified specialist independent evaluators for each project to assess the impact and potential scalability of the projects. The objective was to build high-quality evidence to support possible future commissioning decisions.
The successful projects were selected primarily on their potential value to the local health economy and on the improved outcomes delivered for service users. Up to 12 months of project funding was provided to both the innovator and trial site.
The Future Challenges | Young People and Mental Health Resilience
Our call to innovators focused on two main priorities identified in the West of England:
Building and promoting resilience
Asking “what if we could use digital technology to help support the emotional wellbeing of young people by building resilience and thereby reduce the occurrence of mental health issues in the future?”
Early identification
Asking “what if we could identify needs earlier, allowing more timely support to young people and reducing the incidence of more serious problems developing?”
Two successful projects ran during 2020 and completed in 2021 and the full evaluation reports are now available: MiHUB and SmartGym Gloucestershire.
More details on the original challenge to innovators are available here.
The Future Challenges | Keeping Healthy at Home
Our call to innovators focused on two main priorities identified in the West of England:
Staying well and confident
Asking “what if we had technology, knowledge and the confidence to manage our own condition as an expert?”
Staying connected and supported
Asking “what if we could improve health literacy and fully support self-management?”
Two successful projects ran during 2020 and completed in 2021 and the full evaluation reports are now available: Replenish-ME and Moving to Better Health.
A further Covid-19 response pilot was also run in 2020/21 to support maintaining physical activity levels amongst patients with a respiratory diagnosis who could not access Pulmonary Rehabilitation during the pandemic. Read more about Keeping Active During Covid-19 and download the evaluation report.
More details on the original challenge to innovators are available here.
