Improvement fund

£3 million has been identified over the next three years (£1 million per year) to fund improvement projects, which focus on achieving some of the specific aims of the London Fast-Track Cities Roadmap to Zero.

The London Fast-Track Cities Leadership Group is inviting improvement project bids from across the system which will help us achieve the aims of the roadmap.

Bids for funding will need to demonstrate that they contribute to the overall aims of Fast-Track Cities. This means that they must support efforts to reach those living with HIV, who are undiagnosed and to maintain high treatment and care standards.

In particular we are looking for bids which focus on:

• Early diagnosis and testing: reducing new, late and undiagnosed HIV infections
• Supporting long term virological suppression and re-engaging those lost to care
• Improving integration and personalisation of services: helping people with HIV to live well and experience seamless care and pathways between primary, secondary and community care
• Reaching underserved populations: Londoners where current significant health inequalities exist

The assessment panel will be looking to finish with a balance of these priorities through the programme.

Bids may be made for between one and three years, although we will review all projects on at least a yearly basis. We may look to alter projects to better fit the overall aims as we progress.

We are not proposing a specific limit for bids although clearly if you put in a single bid for the entire £1m per year it is unlikely to be successful. We will however consider multi-level bids where for example one bidder may say that for £50k they could do x and for £80k they could do x plus y. We believe this will be helpful in ensuring we spend the full £1m per year.

Critically, these bids are not grants, we will be awarding organisations allocations with a clear expectation that each project signs up to be part of a collection of projects constituting a Quality Improvement Community. This community will be working together to measure and alter the impact of projects for the benefit of the HIV community as a whole. We will be asking all bidders to commit to being part of the Quality Improvement Community, including attending training sessions throughout the period.

All improvement projects will receive Quality Improvement training and support. There is no need for the bids to have any prior knowledge of approaches or methodologies, as full training will be provided.

Quality Improvement is an approach which increases our knowledge of ‘what works’ through data and experimentation. It ensures that improvement projects engage with and listen to staff and patients.

The bids will be commissioned under the ‘competitive dialogue’ procurement process, which will be administered by North East London Commissioning Support Unit’s procurement department, working on behalf of Healthy London Partnership. This allows for flexibility to look at ways to make changes to projects after the bidding process has been completed and as they progress.

Project changes might include expanding the scope to cover a greater geographical area, including additional partner organisations, or amending approaches as the project learns from experimentation.

The reason for running this process is twofold. Firstly, it is to ensure that we can allocate the full amount of money, £1m per year, to the programme. Secondly, it is to ensure that we have the right combination of projects to achieve our aims and allow the assessment panel to make informed judgments and influence how this will all work together as a single programme.

It is proposed that bids are approved in December 2019 before being worked up to go live as soon as possible in January 2020.

Bids will be assessed by a panel representing the improvement fund subgroup of the Fast-Track Cities London Leadership Group. We will aim to ensure the panel consists of members who are neutral and without any conflict of interest. We will include representation from the voluntary sector and clinicians, as well as patients who do not have a specific conflict of interest in this process.

The bidding process opened on Friday 18 October 2019 and closed on Thursday 12 December 2019.

This fund is now closed, if you would like to see any of the forms relating to the fund then please email hlp.londonftci@nhs.net to find out more.