Test and Learn grant funding for Health Anchors Learning Network (HALN) participants A funding programme for NHS anchor institutions who are HALN participants to enable them to progress and test anchor practice and generate new learning
- A programme to support NHS anchor institutions to progress their anchor ambitions and contribute to tackling health inequalities.
- Six NHS anchor institutions are being supported with funding of up to £25,000 each.
- The projects will start in early 2022 and will run for six to nine months.
The Health Foundation and NHS England and NHS Improvement are working together to improve the wider determinants of health and tackle health inequalities through supporting the NHS in its role as an ‘anchor institution'. This work includes the Health Anchors Learning Network (HALN), which launched in March 2021 for participants to share and develop ideas, knowledge and skills, helping them to implement anchor strategies in practice.
Test and Learn grant funding is being provided to six NHS anchor institutions who are participants of the HALN to make progress on their anchors work, test approaches and generate new and valuable learning for both HALN participants and the wider health and care system on what it takes to deliver anchor work in practice.
Anchor institutions are large, often public sector organisations that are ‘anchored’ in their surrounding community – they are unlikely to relocate and are rooted in and connected to their local populations.
This provides an opportunity to maximise their economic, social and environmental impact by adapting the way they employ people, purchase goods and services, use buildings and spaces, consider their environmental footprint and work in partnership.
For the NHS, this means the potential to make a make a far greater contribution to improve health and wellbeing, and reduce health inequalities, by enhancing their role as anchor institutions.
About the programme
Six projects have been selected for funding, and they will each receive up to £25,000 for projects lasting between six and nine months.
The projects that have been chosen are focusing on a wide range of topics, including improving youth employment opportunities, encouraging social value procurement and developing an anchor framework for coastal communities.
The awards in England are co-funded by the Health Foundation and NHS England and NHS Improvement. The award in Scotland is funded by the Health Foundation.
Outputs and learning generated by the projects will be shared widely and through the HALN.
Find out more
Partnership
Health Anchors Learning Network
A UK-wide network for people responsible for, or interested in, anchors approaches to share ideas,...
Projects
Workforce research project
Using collective employment power to positively influence the social determinants of health and address workforce challenges, this project will involve developing a shared local plan to enable the mos...
Diversifying NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s supply chain
This project aims to diversify NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s supply chain and will involve analysing existing supplier data and developing an engagement programme to provide a bespoke range of suppo...
A Charter to Action – Anchor Youth Partnership
With the aim of supporting young people’s employment opportunities in Mid and South Essex, this project will involve developing a Youth Partnership to improve pre-employment support for young people, ...
Evaluating and embedding social values in procurement
This project will develop and implement an evaluation framework for social value procurement, with the aim of generating learning and identifying improvements and best practice.
Introducing a Foundation School in Health at Bassetlaw
This project will involve developing a model of engagement with schools and young people that will inform, shape and deliver a ‘Foundation School in Health’ in the Bassetlaw area.
Anchoring on the coast: co-designing an anchor framework
Working with communities facing multiple disadvantages across Blackpool and the Fylde Coast, this project will embed five community researchers who will work with the Trust’s research team to co-devel...
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