Specialist team created to evaluate health and social care improvements

The funding, provided by NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR), will see the creation of a specialist team at Northumbria University which will focus on evaluating complex innovations in health and social care. Their findings will provide evidence to inform decision making around policy and practice for services, organisations and delivery.

Announcement of the award comes shortly after the Government announced the launch of ‘Change NHS’ which aims to build a health service fit for the future through the development of a new ten-year health plan. The work, led by Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting and Chief Executive for NHS England Amanda Pritchard follows the independent review by Lord Darzi into the state of our health service and the reforms that are needed.

The IDEAS National Evaluation Team, which will officially launch in February 2025, will bring together experts from different fields including evidence synthesis, qualitative methods, quantitative and routine data, mixed methods, implementation science and knowledge mobilisation and health economics, as well as those working in and using the services across the healthcare sector.

Working collaboratively, the interdisciplinary team will assess the success or otherwise of new or changing services, make suggested improvements and inform decisions around how to spend money on health and social care services in the future to ensure the right people get access to the right services at the right time.

Professor Sonia Dalkin, Co-Director of the IDEAS National Evaluation Team at Northumbria University, said the team would bring an “in-depth, practical understanding of the challenges faced by our health and social care services.”

“Our team is already embedded within the existing regional and national health and care research infrastructures with many of us previously having worked across the sector. We have well established links to regional and national UK policy makers, health and care systems in the regional and devolved nations as well as connections to services, participants, and other stakeholders within those nations. We also have access to regional and national routine health service data, and research support and delivery infrastructure, to support our evaluations."

Professor Angela Bate, Co-Director of the IDEAS National Evaluation Team, added: “By bringing together experts in different fields, with a wealth of knowledge of these systems and services, we will be able to develop findings that can inform decision making around both practice and policy that will lead to health and care service advances, improved cultures and deeper collaboration across the sectors. This will also allow for further innovation in the methods used in health and social care evaluation”

The project will also be supported by a National Advisory Group, which will include partners and stakeholders who can provide additional methodological and service expertise particularly during the early scoping and co-design phases for projects, and a Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Group, who will ensure that the team’s evaluations include people from all different backgrounds.

Following the Medical Research Council’s updated framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions the plan is to align any work carried out by the IDEAS National Evaluation Team with the new guidance around utilising an interdisciplinary approach. Each evaluation project will include representatives from the Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Group, relevant partners and people from the services being evaluated to allow for the most holistic insights to be developed to make the most practical and effective recommendations.