A joint project to gain insights into neighbourhood vaccination activities in Greater Manchester has received £275,000 funding.

Health Innovation Manchester, the AHSN for Greater Manchester and East Cheshire, and the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester (NIHR ARC-GM) have been awarded £275,000 funding for an NHS Insights Prioritisation Programme project (NIPP).

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unequal impact on populations in the UK, with Greater Manchester experiencing disproportionally high virus-related morbidity and mortality. Although the COVID-19 vaccination programme has been hugely impactful, uptake of the vaccines has varied across Greater Manchester communities and neighbourhoods.

The joint project will examine barriers to vaccination uptake across the region and learn from local approaches undertaken to overcome these, with an aim to gain rapid insights into innovation development, implementation and outcomes.

This research and information will be used to explore further opportunities for targeted vaccination activities and produce actionable guidance for all types of vaccination programmes delivered now and in the future across Greater Manchester.

Dr Tracey Vell, Health Innovation Manchester’s Clinical Director, said: “A successful vaccination programme has been vital during the COVID-19 pandemic response. Greater Manchester has found innovative ways to deliver both COVID-19 and flu vaccines in the community and it is important that we learn from these to improve vaccination programmes in the future.”

Dai Roberts, Senior Programme Development Lead at Health Innovation Manchester, said: “By generating rapid insights into the implementation of locally responsive neighbourhood vaccination activity we are aiming to reduce inequalities and create a lasting legacy of best practice for vaccination delivery in Greater Manchester.”

Professor Jo Dumville, Deputy Lead for the NIHR ARC-GM Evaluation theme and Professor of Applied Health Research at The University of Manchester, said: “We plan to describe vaccination activity, understand successes and learn from these models to optimise future vaccination delivery.”

Janet Castrogiovanni, Managing Director of the Greater Manchester Primary Care Provider Board, said: “This is an important piece of research which will help us to plan how we deliver vaccinations routinely in the future”.

The NHS Insights Prioritisation Programme was established by the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative and the NIHR to accelerate the evaluation and implementation of innovation that supports post-pandemic ways of working, builds service resilience and delivers benefits to patients.

Health Innovation Manchester brings together health, academia and industry as part of an academic health science system with the aim of accelerating innovation to improve people’s health and wellbeing.

Our aim is to make Greater Manchester the most innovative health and social care system in the UK, a place internationally renowned for its ability to apply the skills of industry innovators, academic and clinical colleagues, to meet the needs of patients and citizens.

NIHR ARC Greater Manchester is a partnership between providers and commissioners from the NHS, industry, the third sector and the University of Manchester. It is one of 15 ARCs across England, part of a £135 million investment by the NIHR to improve the health and care of patients and the public. Our remit is to support applied health and care research that responds to and meets the needs of local populations and health and care systems and, to improve the uptake of evidence-based innovation, policies and practices in Greater Manchester and beyond.

The mission of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. We do this by:

• Funding high quality, timely research that benefits the NHS, public health and social care;
• Investing in world-class expertise, facilities and a skilled delivery workforce to trans-late discoveries into improved treatments and services;
• Partnering with patients, service users, carers and communities, improving the relevance, quality and impact of our research;
• Attracting, training and supporting the best researchers to tackle complex health and social care challenges;
• Collaborating with other public funders, charities and industry to help shape a cohesive and globally competitive research system;
• Funding applied global health research and training to meet the needs of the poorest people in low and middle income countries.

NIHR is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care. Its work in low and middle income countries is principally funded through UK Aid from the UK government.