HITs bring nearly £4m in funding to the region in last nine months

Health Integration Teams (HITs) have brought £3,988,121 of funding to the region since July 2016. Some of these awards are for research, while others are for service innovation.

NHS England has awarded Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire £1.3 million for a new perinatal mental health service for women with the most serious mental health needs, driven through by the Improving Perinatal Mental Health (IMPROVE) HIT.

£1.1 million has been awarded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Services and Delivery Research for a project on the cost effectiveness of employing GPs in the Emergency Department. This is an initiative led by the Avoiding Hospital Admissions (ITHAcA) HIT.

The Dementia HIT has attracted £900,000 from MRC Momentum to look at using technology to better assess dementia patients’ cognition and abilities based on their amyloid status.

Other awards include:

• £435,009 to the Bristol Immunisation Group (BIGHIT) for work on meningococcal carriage
• £60,000 from the NIHR School for Primary Care Research to the Drug and Alcohol HIT for a systematic review of community detoxification for alcohol dependency
• £55,000 from St Monica Trust for the Active Older People (APPhLE) HIT to scale up the Active Connected and Engaged Communities project in North Bristol
• £27,361 from Elizabeth Blackwell Institute to ITHAcA for an industry exchange researcher in residence to work with BT on a healthcare project
• £19,600 from Bristol Ageing Better and the Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Accounts to the Healthy Neighbourhood Environments (SHINE) HIT for innovation in inclusive walking
• £17,588 funding from Bristol Clinical Commissioning Group for the Eating Disorders HIT to examine how to improve primary care for children and young people with eating disorders
• £13,650 for qualitative research to the Bristol Bones and Joints HIT to understand the patient perspective of dose reduction in the B-TRIM care pathway at North Bristol Trust (NBT)

David Wynick, Chair of the Bristol Health Partners Executive Group and Joint Research Director for University Hospitals Bristol and NBT, said:

“Health Integration Teams are proving themselves to be powerhouses for securing funding for the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire health system. This is the first time we’ve collated the funding income for our HITs over a specific timeframe, and we are delighted to see such a healthy investment in their work and the region. This shows how vital HITs have become for attracting funding to the area – well done to all the teams who have secured these important resources to improve health and care for the people living here.”

Note – this article was corrected on 3 May. The original incorrectly assigned £4.3m from MRC Momentum to the Dementia HIT.