Unity Insights’ Partnership with the Health Innovation Network

Background

Since 2018, Unity Insights has been a trusted partner of the Health Innovation Network (HIN), playing a pivotal role in shaping, delivering, and evidencing the impact of national and regional innovation programmes. Our work has enabled the HIN to meet national requirements, demonstrate patient and system benefit, and evolve its assurance processes as priorities shifted over time.

Building the foundations (2018-2019)

In 2018, when HINs were tasked with developing a suite of national programmes, Unity Insights was commissioned to provide critical due diligence on each proposed initiative. Our assessment went beyond surface-level review, incorporating patient benefit target-setting and rigorous health economics modelling. This comprehensive approach provided NHSE with the confidence that each programme was both clinically meaningful and economically viable.

With the seven national programmes approved, it became clear that a centralised assurance mechanism was required to monitor delivery across all 15 HINs. Unity Insights stepped forward to design and implement this function, developing robust templates and standardised processes to capture quarterly data. This included the development and implementation of the ‘Stages of Adoption’, a framework for identifying the stage at which an NHS organisation was at for adopting each of the national programmes.

Each HIN submission was reviewed and assured by Unity Insights before being escalated to NHS England (NHSE), establishing us a trusted partner in the process of national programme performance monitoring.

Driving transparency and impact

Unity Insights transformed raw assurance data into actionable insights. We implemented advanced Tableau dashboards, offering NHSE and HINs visibility of programme spread, adoption, and measurable impact on interactive maps. These dashboards became a cornerstone of the HIN’s quarterly and annual impact reporting, enabling demonstration of innovation adoption and benefits to patients and the NHS workforce.

Over the years, our remit expanded to capture assurance data for three national commissioners: NHSE, NHS Improvement (NHSI), and the Office for Life Sciences (OLS). Unity Insights provided the infrastructure, expertise, and impartiality needed to ensure credibility and confidence in HIN performance data.

Supporting HIN relicensing

When HIN relicensing was under review, Unity Insights played a central role in providing the evidence base that informed NHSE’s decision-making. Our contribution included:

• Updated due diligence on proposed national programmes.
• Robust health economic analyses to quantify system impact.
• Direct interviews with innovators to validate feasibility and readiness.
• Production of a comprehensive suite of papers for NHSE’s investment committee.

This work underpinned the relicensing process and positioned the HIN for continued success.

Innovating the assurance model

As priorities shifted from national to local programmes, Unity Insights again pivoted to fill an assurance gap. We developed the Local Programmes Impact Tracker, an online tool designed to capture the clinical focus, patient benefit, and workforce impact of local initiatives. This tracker empowered HINs to evidence their regional contribution in a consistent, comparable way. The tool enabled the real-time reporting of local programmes, moving away from the strict quarterly reporting cycle that had been embedded within the Network.

Our agility has been a constant theme of the partnership. Over the course of our engagement, Unity Insights has redeployed assurance tools across three different platforms, evolving from spreadsheets to real-time PowerApps and Tableau solutions. This ensured that assurance processes remained user-friendly, scalable, and technologically current.

Providing bespoke programme support

Unity Insights’ support to the Health Innovation Network was not solely limited to supporting assurance, as Unity Insights provided detailed bespoke support to the National Programme Managers of each of the Network’s national innovations. This bespoke support often involved developing additional reporting metrics and targets, exploring accessing national datasets to evidence the impact of the programmes, or providing additional data collection templates to enable HINs to accurately report their activities and impact to the national team.

Our involvement has seen us support and present externally on projects within clinical areas such as ADHD, Wound Care, Polypharmacy, CVD, Respiratory, and more – totalling to 36 different national and regional innovations!

Impact and legacy

Unity Insights has not only provided technical expertise but also acted as a strategic partner to the HIN. Our contributions have:

• Standardised assurance across 15 HINs.
• Created frameworks for reporting insights into the spread and adoption of innovations.
• Strengthened accountability and confidence for multiple commissioners.
• Enabled evidence-based decision-making at the highest levels of the NHS.
• Ensured both national and local innovation programmes could demonstrate tangible impact for patients and the NHS workforce.

Through foresight, technical expertise, and a commitment to evidence-based assurance, Unity Insights has been instrumental in the Health Innovation Network’s success. Our role has evolved alongside the HIN’s priorities, consistently filling gaps, building scalable solutions, and enabling the NHS to maximise the value of innovation for patients and staff alike.