The NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) Programme is looking to fund high quality research about early action and prevention within Health and Social Care Services.
This is a 2-stage, commissioned funding opportunity. To apply for the first stage you should submit an outline application. If invited to the second stage, you will then need to complete a full application.
Research specification
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) Programme invites applications in response to specific research areas. These have been identified, developed and prioritised for their importance to stakeholders including:
- Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)
- National Health Service (NHS)
- Patients and the public
- Local Government
Research priority
We are interested in funding high quality applied health and social care research to increase and improve the evidence base about early action and prevention with health and social care services.
In response to the 2014 Nurse review of Research Councils, the UK government published areas of research interest (ARIs). The DHSC ARIs focus on areas of strategic policy where research and innovation could facilitate a marked change in how we deal with complex health issues.
The Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) Programme supports evaluative research aimed at improving health and social care services. This research can be primary (qualitative and/or quantitative), secondary, or evidence synthesis, with projects often involving a mixed-methods approach, focusing on the access to, organisation, and quality of care. With key emphasis being placed on understanding the experiences of patients, staff, and service users, research studies can include analyses of routine and linked data on health and social care service use, activity and outcomes.
DHSC ARI 1 prioritises early action to prevent poor health outcomes. The HSDR Programme is interested in funding research aligned with ARI 1. The aim is to reduce excess deaths, improve population health, decrease disparities, and ease the burden on health and social care services.
The HSDR Programme aims to invest in the region of £4 million, across a number of research studies, in relation to this funding opportunity.
Background
Improving the population’s health, either by preventing illness or identifying the cause of ill health at an early stage, is a key focus to reducing health inequalities and is at the heart of the NHS Long Term Plan.
Prevention within health and social care is a broad spectrum of interventions covering a wide range of services. Primary prevention generally looks at how to stop problems from occurring in the first place, for example, through lifestyle changes or vaccination programmes. Secondary prevention focuses on early detection of disease to support timely intervention, such as screening services. Tertiary prevention looks to carefully manage chronic conditions to minimise harm and slow the progression of disease. All types of prevention are important in improving population health, and further research is required to maximise the effectiveness of these types of services and ensure equitable access.
By prioritising prevention in health and social care service delivery, the aim is to keep people active, independent, and engaged in their communities while reducing the need for medical intervention and long-term care. We are interested in funding research which investigates how to reach underserved communities to ensure that everyone, regardless of their background or circumstances, has access to the support and services they need, with the aim of reducing health disparities, promoting fairness in health and social care, and improving overall well-being for all.
Funding opportunity scope
ARI 1 calls for research to evaluate health and social care interventions and services which address gaps in knowledge of preventative strategies, early diagnosis techniques, and effective interventions for individuals at increased risk of long-term conditions and chronic disease. The NIHR HSDR Programme invites applications with a clear focus on prevention to address this research area. This research could be within primary, secondary, or tertiary prevention services or span all of them.
We are looking to fund research that demonstrates clear objectives of improving health or wellbeing, through care at a national level, focusing on how care is delivered or organised. The evidence generated should be timely and be of major and sustained strategic importance to the NHS and social care services, whilst recognising the needs and experience of diverse communities and their differential impact. Full details of the HSDR Programme’s remit is available on the programmes’ webpages.
Although not an exhaustive list, some examples of interest for evaluative research are:
- the pathway, flow, and coordination of patients through prevention services and the broader configuration of prevention services for those with long-term conditions and rehabilitation following acute care
- innovative ways of providing, commissioning, or streamlining prevention services, for example:
- the integration of preventative approaches and initiatives within health and social care services (such as original/novel research on NHS vaccination programmes, social prescribing, smoking cessation, preventative clinics/hubs in hospital and primary care settings)
- the effectiveness of service delivery models enabled by emerging technologies and the trade-off between administrative efficiency and patient/staff experiences
- how data can be used to proactively offer preventative support and how data can be linked across health, social care, and other systems
- models of effective systems leadership and funding mechanisms to embed prevention into the commissioning and provision of health and social care.
We are looking to fund research which has the potential to inform prevention services at a national level, and therefore local or regional evaluations are unlikely to be fundable. Similarly, evaluations focused on emerging technologies will require evidence of readiness for research on large-scale service delivery, including the published evidence base. All research should consider health and/or social care inequalities, or research focusing on how reducing inequalities can be integrated into prevention services. Alongside this, increasing access to neighbourhood health and social care services, moving care from hospitals into the community, and/or avoiding hospital admissions in the context of prevention are of particular interest to HSDR.
Due to the HSDR Programme’s recent significant investment in Workforce Research Partnerships, proposals focusing solely on the health and social care workforce are out of scope for this particular funding opportunity.
Applicants should take note of the existing NIHR portfolio to ensure that research proposals do not directly overlap with, but build upon and add value to, ongoing and completed research studies. In particular, applicants should also be aware that the HSDR Programme has recently closed separate research funding opportunities focused on ‘Hospital at home/virtual wards: service delivery, integration, evaluating impact on health and social care’ and ‘Improving health and social care services for adults with multiple long-term conditions’, as well as being aware of the resulting ongoing research from the NIHR/EPSRC Systems Engineering Innovation partnerships for Multiple long-term Conditions (SEISMIC) Programme – a large-scale programme of research to consider how to better configure services for people with multiple long-term conditions.
Study design
The HSDR Programme is not prescriptive about study design, but funded evaluative studies typically employ mixed methods approaches. Study design and methodology should be appropriate to answer the proposed research questions.
Outputs
Pathways to Impact – we are focused on the impact of the research we fund. Applicants are asked to consider the timing and nature of the deliverables in your proposals; and encouraged to maximise the impact of your research by explaining how you will mobilise knowledge and ensure that it is useful and relevant to stakeholders such as:
- NHS
- local authorities
- integrated care systems
- policy makers
- public health officers
- special interest groups
- charities
- community audiences
- other stakeholders
Duration and costs
You are advised that we are custodians of public funds and value for money is one of the key criteria that peer reviewers and commissioning committee members will assess applications against.
Eligibility
There are no specific eligibility requirements or restrictions for applicants to this funding opportunity.
Visit funding web page
(https://www.nihr.ac.uk/funding/early-action-and-prevention-within-health-and-social-care-services/2025410)
