Implementation
Our dedicated focus on implementation planning has enhanced the uptake and impact of ARC projects. Through a joint leadership role with Health Innovation Wessex, and close working with our partners, including Wessex Health Partners, our ICSs, health and care providers and our higher education partners, researchers have been supported to foster connections and networking critical to implementation success. Stakeholders (such as clinicians and commissioners) have been engaged early in the research cycle to understand the factors that will support the adoption of research.
Our implementation team has provided implementation advice, co-developed implementation plans and advised on grant applications. An implementation checklist was developed to assist researchers in planning for implementation at the outset of their projects
Other resources | NIHR ARC Wessex.
Our partnership with Health Innovation Wessex has benefitted understanding of how to optimise the impact of ARC innovations and research findings , and has led to several joint programmes of work including research in optimising the use of medicines , the Wessex NHS Insights Prioritisation Programme (NIPP), a review of the evidence for community based falls prevention, and development of a Workforce Evaluation Toolkit.
Our medicines optimisation programme was founded on a deep understanding of system priorities, resulting in research questions that addressed system priorities and successful implementation of the findings and new resources.
Our evaluations of digital remote monitoring for people with frailty in Wessex, and our joint evidence review of community based falls prevention in England with ARC South West Peninsula, provided insights into the implementation of innovation in practice and have been widely disseminated. Our policy brief on falls prevention, published in 2025, describes lessons for implementation from several ARC implementation studies of falls prevention programmes to benefit commissioners, providers and the public. Ageing, dementia & frailty priority | NIHR ARC Wessex. And in response to an expressed need from our system partners for help with evaluating change in the workplace, we produced an evaluation framework and toolkit to guide what to evaluate, how to ask evaluation questions and ways to measure change (In development).
In October 2024, we launched our knowledge mobilisation programme and recruited a team of four knowledge mobilisation fellows, enabling us to develop expertise in this area and amplify awareness of the importance of knowledge mobilisation for research impact.
The ARC Wessex implementation strategy focuses on addressing the gap between projects that validate an innovation at a single and/or single group of sites and adoption of that innovation by the wider health and social care system.
Sustainable system implementation is not a linear pipeline process, but a dynamic interaction between health and care research, commissioning and delivery at multiple points in the innovation cycle.
The ARC Wessex Implementation Team has developed a workflow, including an implementation checklist, that is applied to the entire ARC Wessex portfolio.
Our workflow includes initial implementation advice to help researchers complete the proposal form, reviewing the ARC proposals, and providing follow-up support to successful projects (advice only or in-depth).
For in-depth support, we co-develop detailed implementation plans with the project leads.
All projects have access to implementation resources. As well, we actively contribute to the development of materials for the ARC Wessex PhD fellowship programme, including teaching sessions.
Collaborating with Wessex AHSN focuses on bringing AHSN criteria or staff into the ARC funding process, making initial contacts in the NHS for ARC portfolio projects (when appropriate), continuing active working on specific projects and contributing to upcoming proposals.
The Implementation Team also offers support to each ARC-funded project implementation champion (IC). ICs are not necessarily researchers, are located within, or can readily connect with, the relevant setting(s) where the project findings will have relevance. The IC promotes knowledge of the project, facilitate conversations about its implications and promotes translation.
See details of the Wessex NHS Insights Prioritisation Programme Project (NIPP) in conjunction with the Ageing and Dementia theme and AHSN Wessex
