A project for NHS innovation will pour £1.5 million into several NHS trust to enhance care in areas including primary care and mental health.
The Health Foundation has selected 21 new projects to be part of the sixth round of its innovation programme Innovating for Improvement, which aims to improve health care delivery and the way people manage their own health care through the redesign of processes, practices and services.
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Selected projects will be led by clinical teams and develop their innovative ideas and approaches, put them into practice and gather evidence about how their innovation improves quality over 15 months. Each team will receive up to £75,000 in funding.
Ideas will be tested in health care settings around the UK including primary and community care, secondary care and mental health services.
The Aneurin Bevan University Health Board will look at polypharmacy – use of multiple medications. They will analyse polypharmacy-related patient safety incidents reported to a national database, developing a nurse-led intervention to manage medicines for older people in care homes and reduce adverse reactions.
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Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust will deliver a ‘pioneering’ programme of antenatal education to 200 women and their birth partners, to ensure they are better informed about the birth process and to empower them to influence birth outcomes, hoping to increase normal birth and breastfeeding rates, and reduce obstetric interventions.
Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust noted there is a large population of heroin users in Merseyside, and they are at risk of developing severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Their project will facilitate access to existing community COPD services by improving communication and engagement with this hard-to-reach population, with the aim of reducing hospital admissions.
Half of the pregnancies in England are unintended, causing significant morbidity for women and cost to the NHS. A project from free online sexual health service SH:24 will create a safe space for women to make contraceptive choices that combine the shared experience of a social networking site and the individual clinical advice of a contraceptive consultation.
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Tower Hamlets CCG will provide primary care teams with diagnostic and operational support to help them make improvements that will have a positive impact on the lives of staff and the care of patients. It will use evidence-based quality improvement methodology, using data to identify opportunities for improvement, training and cross-practice collaborations.
The selection of these projects is currently subject to contracts being finalised with the lead organisation of each project.