The Innovation for Healthcare Inequalities Programme (InHIP) aims to address local healthcare inequalities experienced by deprived and other under-served populations.

Health Innovation Manchester, alongside expertise from Secondary Care partners and other community organisations in Greater Manchester, are working with local communities to identify, address and minimise healthcare inequalities through projects to improve access to the latest health technologies and medicines.

The programme is a unique collaboration between the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC), NHS England’s National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme and the Health Innovation Network and delivered in partnership with integrated care systems (ICSs).

These technologies and medicines are focused on five clinical areas of priority which closely align with the national Core20PLUS5 approach to reducing healthcare inequalities which includes:

• Maternity
• Mental Health
• Respiratory
• Cancer diagnosis
• Cardiovascular disease

Key to this work are voices from local communities who are guiding this work to make sure that those most in need will benefit from it.

Nationally a total of £4.2 million was made available to support NHS England’s InHIP programme for eligible local projects across England.

This programme builds on the AAC and Health Innovation Networks’ achievements and learning to date in improving access to innovations in healthcare for the general population.

Pilot launched in Oldham to support children, young people and families with asthma or respiratory illness and tackle health inequalities

An innovative six-month pilot has launched at the Royal Oldham Hospital (ROH), with the aim of transforming services for children and young people (CYP) living with asthma and related conditions as well as reduce avoidable harms caused by smoking or second-hand smoke inside the home.

Introduced in February 2023, the pilot takes a whole-household approach to asthma intervention, working with ROH Children’s and Paediatric Observation and Assessment Unit to help identify children and young people admitted to hospital with asthma or respiratory illnesses, who smoke or live in a household that smokes.

This pilot is part of the wider Innovation for Healthcare Inequalities Programme (InHIP) which aims to address local healthcare inequalities experienced by deprived and other under-served populations. ​Project teams from across the country are working together with their local communities to identify, address and minimise healthcare inequalities through projects to improve access to the latest health technologies and medicines.

Health Innovation Manchester has worked collaboratively with key stakeholders across NHS Greater Manchester (NHS GM), including The Royal Oldham Hospital, ABL Health and Your Health Oldham and the Make Smoking History Team to identify key focus points within the local health and care system, proposing that one of the greatest healthcare inequality challenges in Greater Manchester is paediatric asthma and effects of second-hand smoke on asthma.

As part of this, a collaborative Insight Report has been published following a series of community focus groups delivered in Oldham, which examines positive and negative experiences and common areas for improvement in asthma treatment and management, alongside the risks of smoking.

The Report published by Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership, in collaboration with Health Innovation Manchester, provides a summary of insights gathered through engagement with and the participation of communities in Oldham. This explores and analyses their knowledge of children and young person’s asthma management along with the effects of triggers, with a particular focus on smoking.

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As part of this work, the Health Innovation Manchester project team have produced two documents which provide detailed insight into the project undertaken in Oldham in the form of an Implementation Toolkit and a Pilot Guide.

These documents highlight the importance of understanding people and place when transforming services and implementing a broad range of activities and approaches which focus on individuals, community and environmental influences on human behaviour. The initiative was developed and delivered in partnership between Greater Manchester Integrated Care and Health Innovation Manchester.

The documents also outline the steps taken to target asthma management in children and young people, and include a practical toolkit developed by Health Innovation Manchester which provides resources to help teams replicate this approach.