Innovate at Imperial fair, equitable and beneficial to patients – report
Innovate at Imperial fair, equitable and beneficial to patients – report
17 February 2025
The independent review, carried out by Powellite Impact on behalf of the charity, aimed to assess the success of the programme through a three-stage review process made up of:
- An analysis of the 42 Innovate at Imperial grant applications, and the 24 end-of-grant reports
- Interviews with Innovate at Imperial grantees and applicants, and
- A survey of grant holders, co-applicants of grantees and unsuccessful applicants.
The review found that:
- The Innovate at Imperial Programme processes were effective and appropriate, both in terms of grant size and application processes.
- The approach to running the programme was fair and equitable for all applicants.
- 91% of past grantees reported their projects had benefitted patients
- 82% of past grantees reported that the funding had encouraged effective cross-working between departments.
Through Innovate at Imperial, Imperial Health Charity makes funding available for teams to explore innovative ways of improving health and social care, hospital processes, staff wellbeing, and/or patient safety and care.
The report made a small number of recommendations to further improve the programme, including extending the marketing of the programme to better engage staff at the Western Eye and Hammersmith Hospitals, and extending the project funding from 18 months to two years for those projects requiring recruitment of project staff and patient involvement
Commenting on the findings, Carolyn Bennett, Imperial Health Charity’s Head of Grants, said:
“We’re delighted that this independent review has confirmed that our Innovate at Imperial programme is achieving what we set out to do – improving patient care and service delivery in our hospitals – in a way that suits the needs of our grantees and applicants.
“This valuable research has made a number of recommendations we are looking at putting in place to improve the programme even further ahead of its relaunch in April."
“We’d encourage anyone who’s got a special interest in delivering new ways of working to accelerate progress, strengthen hospital processes or improve patient care and safety to get in touch with us when the programme relaunches.”
The two stage application process for Innovate at Imperial is relaunching from Tuesday 1st April 2025. For more information, including how to apply, please visit our Grants pages.
