Evaluating innovation
Evaluating the effectiveness of innovations in a real-world setting and generate evidence to identify which innovations should be adopted in health and care.
Our evaluation and insights work continues to provide clear evidence to support decision-making across the health and care system. This year, we have carried out a wide range of projects, including system-level evaluations such as NHS 111 for mental health, and studies looking at new technologies and ways of delivering care.
We have also worked with partners to increase research activity, particularly in primary care, and supported work to better understand and reduce health inequalities. By combining economic analysis, data and feedback from patients and staff, we help ensure that decisions about new approaches to care are based on strong evidence and real-world impact.
Insights overview
The appointment of two new health economists alongside a strengthening of data and analytics skills demonstrates how our evaluation and insights offer continued to grow during 2025/26. The team supported more than 31 evaluation and insights projects over the course of the year working with other HIN teams and system partners. They continue to have a key role delivering a number of strategic longer-term evaluations with partners from across the system:
- With NHS England, we are evaluating digital access using e-triage technology in A&E departments across London to inform commissioning decision for scale-up.
- With Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London, we are evaluating the impact on patient outcomes and cost-effectiveness of Roczen, a digital weight management platform.
- With the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Paediatrics and Child Health, we are completing an analysis to establish for the first time the economic burden of paediatric congenital heart disease.
- With Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, we are evaluating whether a new process combining AI and navigational bronchoscopy could accelerate lung cancer diagnosis.
- With King’s College London and using Medical Research Council funding, we conducted a Budget Impact Analysis to assess the affordability of adopting AI models in MRI scans of the brain. This work addressed current lack of health economic evidence for using deep learning models to support clinical workflow.
- In addition, the team has provided specialist evaluation advice to 17 projects via the South London Evaluation Advice Clinic, working in collaboration with King’s Health Partners and NIHR ARC South London. Feedback from projects who made use of the Clinics found that almost all attendees felt more confident undertaking evaluation activities after receiving advice from the delivery team.
Some of our other recent evaluation projects are highlighted across the rest of this section of our report.
NHS111: #MentalHealth evaluation
Beginning in 2023, the NHS111 telephone service in London has offered a new point of access for urgent mental health support.
This new functionality – sometimes known as NHS111 #MentalHealth or NHS111 Press 2 – is intended to provide 24/7, all-age access to mental health care and support across the capital.
Commissioned by NHS England and working with UCLPartners, we undertook a co-designed evaluation of the first 11 months of implementation of this new service, which found:
- Promising reductions in referrals towards emergency care and primary care, suggesting the service helped more people access suitable care;
- Some positive feedback from service users, although the sample sizes were small;
- Some indications of overall cost savings at a system level;
- Lower overall call volumes than expected, with the NHS 111 physical health service continuing to field a significant proportion of mental health calls.
Building research capabilities in primary care in south west London
Primary care plays a vital role in improving people’s health, yet research activity in south west London has historically been lower than in other parts of London. To help address this, the HIN and NHS South West London secured funding from the NIHR Regional Research Delivery Network to identify practical strategies for increasing research engagement across primary care.
Using a four-stage approach, this work explored barriers and facilitators to research participation and developed evidence-based strategies to build research capacity.
A rapid evidence review (Phase 1) screened 1,451 papers and identified proven enablers such as protected time, funding, and strong research partnerships. Phase 2 involved interviews with 19 GPs, many of whom were motivated by the benefits of research for patients. As one GP noted, research can lead to “better care and stronger patient relationships.” They also described barriers including limited time, unclear support, and difficulty navigating the research landscape: “Lack of time and unclear support make it feel out of reach.”
These insights informed Phase 3, a stakeholder workshop, where partners across south west London codesigned strategies such as funded research champion roles, improved communication, inclusive recruitment approaches and exploring protected research time. Stakeholders described the work as “creating momentum we haven’t seen before in south west London.” Building on this, the Health Innovation Network South London is delivering an implementation and communication plan (Phase 4), progressing funding bids with local partners, and has secured funding to write the findings for a peer reviewed publication.
Evaluating an anti-racism focused quality improvement approach to addressing ethnic inequalities in maternal and neonatal health
Women and babies from the global majority experience a wide range of health inequalities related to maternal and neonatal care.
One of the methods being used to address these inequalities is the NHS Race and Health Observatory’s Maternal and Neonatal Health Learning and Action Network, which combines anti-racism and quality improvement techniques to improve outcomes.
The HIN and UCLPartners undertook a 14-month mixed-methods evaluation of the programme which identified:
- Multiple barriers and enablers for anti-racist quality improvement, which were mapped using a new framework, the Model for Improving Success in Quality, anti-racism (MUSIQ-AR);
- Early signs of positive impact on clinical outcomes for some projects, although a full picture is not available due to the project timeframe.
The evaluation and its recommendations have been used to guide the development of the programme as it moves from initial pilot towards wider adoption.