Launched in 2022 and underpinned by NHS England’s Core20PLUS5 approach, the Innovation for Health Care Inequalities Programme (InHIP) aims to accelerate patient access to innovative medicines and medical technologies for those living in the 20% most deprived geographical areas in England, and other population groups experiencing poorer health outcomes.  

Through the programme, a collaboration between NHS England’s Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) and Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Team, and the AHSN Network, each Integrated Care System (ICS) in England could apply for up to £100,000 of funding to help close inequity in one of these groups through accelerating adoption of approved healthcare innovations. The 15 regional AHSNs were called on to support the ICSs to select and design an InHIP project.  

To ensure projects could understand and measure their impact, and that learning was captured across England, the AHSN Network and AAC commissioned the South West AHSN to guide each of the 15 AHSNs to develop and embed robust evaluation approaches in their ICS InHIP projects. 

Our team of four evaluation leads provided each AHSN with a bespoke logic modelling and measurement strategy workshop, expert advice and guidance. We also convened team sessions throughout the bid period for more in-depth support and Q&A sessions and led on a reflective learning session at the end. For the bespoke workshops, we layered a health inequities lens on our normal logic modelling approach. 

The AHSN Network and AAC are interested to capture the learning to see how this new approach can be used going forward. 

In addition to sharing our evaluation expertise, we are also supporting all three ICSs within the South West (Somerset, CIOS and Devon) to deliver the InHIP project in their region.