Shine 2010 Shine 2010 aimed to stimulate thinking, activity and the development of new approaches to improve quality and save money

With the NHS under increasing financial pressures, health care organisations have to find new ways of doing things, using methods that improve quality and also save money.

Aims

Our Shine programme aimed to stimulate thinking, activity and the development of innovative approaches that will improve health care quality. It gave teams the space and encouragement to try out, develop and evaluate new ideas. 

Projects

This first round of Shine started in spring 2010 and ended in spring 2011.

We selected a range of projects covering many different areas in the NHS, including restructuring antenatal care for high-risk pregnancies, reducing hospital admissions from nursing homes, reducing harm in mental health wards and improving chemotherapy services.

We selected 18 teams from across the UK to take part who received:

• funding of up to £75,000
• first-class support to evaluate the impact of the innovation
• opportunities to reflect on learning, learn from other innovators and get feedback from innovation experts
• support from the Health Foundation in promoting successful approaches to system leaders and policy makers.

Learning

The project teams all produced final reports, including self evaluation results, which can be found on the project pages, and some of the projects were able to demonstrate significant savings. For example:

• The team at NHS Stoke on Trent, who ran a project to manage the demand for pathology tests from general practice, made real cost savings through reducing the number of unnecessary tests ordered and the use of alternative test, around £17,000 per year.
• The team from University Hospital of Wales, who ran a project to conduct outpatient operative hysteroscopy with conventional reuseable equipment, anticipated savings of around £15-20,000 per year.