Local innovation, scaled
A local innovation works, so it is invested in and opened up for others to use
Local innovation, scaled is an operating pattern that creates intentional pathways for proven local successes to spread across the NHS. When a team develops something that demonstrably works, whether it’s a digital tool, a care pathway, or a service model, the system has mechanisms ready to identify that success, resource its expansion, and make it available to otters who could benefit. Rather than leaving good ideas trapped in their place of origin, or forcing every organisation to reinvent solutions to common problems, this pattern treats local innovations as potential system assets worthy of investment and deliberate scaling.
The mechanism works through a combination of intelligence functions that actively can for promising innovations, funding structures that can quickly redirect resources toward proven successes, and the organisational flexibility to transfer teams and services from local to regional or national homes as they mature. In this example, a local innovation such as a falls prevention app developed within one hospital that saves hundreds of thousands of pounds doesn’t remain a success story within one Trust. It becomes a candidate for scaling, receiving the money and people needed to adapt it for wider use, whether through white-labelling, regional rollout or national adoption.
NHS examples
- Safe Steps Fall Prevention App
- Health Innovation Networks