Building on the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) and Health Innovation Network (HIN) achievements and learning to date in improving access to innovations in healthcare for the general population, NHS England’s Innovation for Healthcare Inequalities Programme (InHIP) aims to address local healthcare inequalities experienced by deprived and other under-served populations.
This programme is a unique collaboration between the AAC, NHS England’s National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme and Health Innovation Network teams who are working in partnership with integrated care systems.
Project teams (comprising clinical and non-clinical expertise) from across the country are working together with their local communities to identify, address and minimise healthcare inequalities through projects to improve access to the latest health technologies and medicines.
These technologies and medicines are focused on five clinical areas of priority which closely align with the national Core20PLUS5 approach to reducing healthcare inequalities which includes maternity, mental health, respiratory, cancer diagnosis and cardiovascular disease.
Working with members of Dorset Integrated Care Board (ICB), the InHIP programme is supporting a project that is improving the uptake of the NICE approved Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) innovation within lower socio-economic groups, rural and coastal areas through engaging with members of these communities to understand how access to the test can be improved. The project is also supporting Dorset primary care staff to monitor and support patients requiring a FIT through the implementation of a secondary technology, ©C the Signs. Insight's Independent Evaluation of Dorset ICS InHIP Programme, published March 2024, is available here.
In Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, the InHIP programme is improving access to cardiovascular health checks in areas of greatest deprivation. This is being supported through the use of Lifelight®, an artificial intelligence-enabled vital signs technology that provides contactless blood pressure and heart rate monitoring. Insight's Independent Evaluation of HIOW ICS InHIP Programme, published March 2024, is available here.
Key to both of these projects are the voices from local communities who are guiding this work to make sure that those most in need will benefit from it.
