Innovation in the NHS is the successful exploitation of new ideas to improve quality and increase productivity. At its heart it is about generating new ideas, selecting the good ones and implementing them. This has been summarised as:
Strategic health authorities now have a new legal duty to promote innovation and to publish an annual innovation report setting out the work done in the region and its impact.
Here in the East Midlands we are putting in place a number of key building blocks to support and incentivise innovation.
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Building on the Next Stage Review principle of co-production, two chief executive sponsors for innovation have been appointed: Peter Homa and Andrew Kenworthy. Peter Homa is chief executive of Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and Andrew Kenworthy is chief executive of NHS Nottingham City. Each organisation in the region has nominated a Board-level lead for innovation who will work with the strategic health authority to further develop our innovation strategy.
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We will use the new Innovation Fund to increase the quantity, spread and speed of innovation, improve quality and increase productivity.
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We are working to develop and agree a small set of consistent quality and innovation metrics to be included in contracts with health service providers.
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Through our Quality Observatory, we will agree key data sets to enable primary care trusts and other organisations to benchmark their outcomes and improvements locally and nationally.
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We will work closely with all major stakeholders in health and social care, industry, education, the voluntary and third sectors to develop clear priorities for action, identify key deliverables and agree measures for success.
Visit The Improvement Network (TIN) to find out more about the innovative work being undertaken across the East Midlands.