Leveraging innovation to support care closer to home
We are launching a new multi-year programme exploring how innovation can help deliver on the longstanding ambition to provide more care closer to home.
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The implementation of the ‘Leveraging Innovation to Support Care Closer to Home’ project has been enabled through a partnership between Roche and The King's Fund, where Roche has provided funding.
Hear more about this project
Why are we doing this work?
Delivering more care closer to home has been a consistent ambition for health and care policy in England over several decades. It is a cornerstone of the NHS 10 Year Plan and widely recognised as essential for improving patient experience, reducing pressure on hospitals and creating a sustainable health and care system for the future.
'What if innovation efforts were redirected to become a core enabler of the hospital to community shift?'
Yet, despite repeated commitments, progress has been slow. Successive governments have articulated a vision of services centred around communities rather than hospitals, but that vision remains far from reality. There are many reasons for this, from workforce shortages and funding constraints to fragmented services and the complexity of changing entrenched models of care.
One factor that receives less attention is the role of technology and innovation. Historically, advances in technology have often reinforced hospital-centric models of care, contributing to what Lord Darzi described as the ‘right drift’ towards specialist, hospital-based services rather than the desired ‘left shift’ towards care in the community.
But what if that dynamic could be changed? What if innovation efforts were redirected to become a core enabler of the hospital to community shift?
There is real potential. Emerging innovations in treatment, diagnostics and care delivery could transform how and where care is provided. The NHS has a proud history of pioneering innovation, but translating new ideas into widespread practice remains a challenge, particularly in community settings where services are dispersed and often under-resourced and overstretched.
Through this programme we want to explore how the focus of innovation efforts could be centred more deliberately around accelerating the shift towards care closer to home. We aim to understand what it would take to make this happen, including the practical steps, system changes and cultural shifts required to embed innovation in primary and community care settings. Ultimately, our goal is to help ensure that innovations work for patients and communities – improving outcomes, experiences and equity, while supporting a sustainable health and care system.
What are we doing?
Our ambition is to raise the profile of this important topic, generate fresh ideas and insights, and provide practical guidance on embedding innovations into primary and community care settings to improve health outcomes and experiences.
This two-and-a-half-year strategic partnership with Roche will identify and examine different types of innovations that aim to reduce reliance on hospital-based care and transform patient outcomes and experience. We will consider innovations across three areas:
treatment innovations
innovations in diagnostics and monitoring
and new models of care delivery.
We want to understand the potential impact for patients, as well as exploring implications for the efficient and sustainable use of health and care resources, and for reducing health inequalities.
Our work will look not only at the innovations themselves but also at the implementation challenges and system changes needed to realise their potential, working closely with local health and care systems to understand these dynamics.
Our approach
The programme will run from early 2026 to mid-2028 and will be delivered in three phases:
Phase one: understanding innovations and how they’re implemented
We will conduct a horizon-scanning exercise, including a comprehensive review of available literature, and engage with experts, including people with lived experience and staff. This will help us map the landscape of innovations with the greatest potential to support care closer to home and explore the implementation considerations and system changes they require.
Phase two: learning-site research
We will work in-depth with selected sites to understand how innovations are implemented, what system adaptations are needed and what impact they have. This phase will draw on expertise in policy, system change and implementation science.
Phase 3: synthesis, recommendations and dissemination
We will bring together our insights and share them widely through practical outputs, including bite-sized resources, toolkits and engagement events.
The programme steering group
The work will be guided by a steering group of expert stakeholders from across the health and care system, bringing diverse experience and expertise.
We will also work with a larger advisory group, bringing together stakeholders with relevant expertise and lived experience.
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Amit Aggarwal
Executive Director, Medical Affairs and Strategic Partnerships, ABPI -
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Siva Anandaciva
Director of Policy, Events, and Partnerships -
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Ravi Baghirathan
Director of System transformation, accuRx -
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Minal Bakhai
Director for Primary Care and Community Transformation and the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme NHS England -
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Fraser Battye
Head of Policy, The Strategy Unit -
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Sharon Brennan
Director of Policy and Lived Experience, White Tail Consulting and Co-chair of the Timms Review into PIP -
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Andy Brooks
Clinical chair of NAPC and GP -
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Ravi Chana
Executive Director, Diagnostics, ABHI -
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Rishi Das-Gupta
Chief Executive, Health Innovation Network South London -
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Andrew Edmunds
Director of Innovation, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust -
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Matthew Johnson
Director of Access and Innovation, Roche Diagnostics Ltd. -
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Keith Jordan
Customer Excellence Cluster Lead, Roche Products Ltd -
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Bob Klaber
Consultant Paediatrician and Director of Strategy, Research & Innovation, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust -
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Sonja Marjanovic
Director (Healthcare Innovation), RAND Europe -
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Tracey Vell
Chief Officer, Greater Manchester Primary Care Providers -
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Mayur Vibhuti
Chief Clinical Information Officer, NHS Kent and Medway ICB -
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Matthew Winn
Group Chief Executive, Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust and Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust
Our horizon scanning
In the first phase of our programme, we’re horizon scanning to identify innovations with the greatest potential to reduce reliance on hospital-based care and improve people’s outcomes and experience. We’re especially interested in:
innovations that shift activity from outpatient or inpatient settings into community or home environments
approaches that simplify patient pathways and reduce time spent in hospital
tools that support earlier diagnosis or proactive monitoring of long-term conditions in community settings
models that strengthen multi-disciplinary care across neighbourhoods
approaches that embed equity and are designed to reach underserved communities.
Thanks to all those who have expressed an interest in our programme so far. We are currently pausing expressions of interest while we analyse and respond to the examples shared with us to date.
The project team
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Anna Charles
Senior Fellow -
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Beccy Baird
Senior Fellow -
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Kiran Chauhan
Senior Consultant -
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Gary Kerridge
Researcher
Innovating care, closer to home: launching our new programme
Advances in technology have often reinforced hospital-centric models of care. The King's Fund and Roche are launching a new, two-and-a-half-year programme to explore how innovation can accelerate the shift to care closer to home.
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