BRACE Centre secures £3m funding
The BRACE Centre, in which THIS Institute is a partner, is funded by NIHR to conduct rapid evaluations of promising new services and innovations in health and social care.
The team of multidisciplinary researchers will continue to work closely with NHS staff, patients, the public, and others to examine not only what works, but also how and why things work (or don’t) and in what context. This knowledge will provide decision makers with high quality evidence about the potential benefits of promising new service innovations. The team has already delivered rapid evaluations of issues such as the early implementation of primary care networks, virtual wards during COVID-19, the children and young people’s mental health trailblazer programme, and women’s health hubs.
New, planned evaluations will look at patient referral pathways to the NHS Digital Weight Management Programmes, and the NHS General Practice Improvement Programme. Findings will be shared widely via blogs, podcasts, videos, infographics and more.
Professor Justin Waring, Director of BRACE and THIS Fellow, said:
“We understand that health and care services are facing numerous challenges and are constantly looking for new ways to organise and deliver care. BRACE is here to provide rapid, rigorous, and insightful evaluations to help service leaders, commissioners and policy makers decide whether new ways of organising and providing care should be taken up.”
Graham Martin, Director of Research at THIS Institute said:
“We’re really pleased to be contributing to BRACE, one of five rapid service evaluation centres funded by the NIHR. We look forward to working with our colleagues at the University of Birmingham, RAND Europe, National Voices and THIS Labs to produce timely, high-quality learning at a time of challenge for the NHS.”