SCIE - Accelerating Reform Fund Programme

Social Care Institute for Excellence - " The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has launched a £42.6 million Accelerating Reform Fund (ARF) to boost the quality and accessibility of adult social care by supporting innovation and scaling, and kickstarting a change in services to support unpaid carers.

The Accelerating Reform Fund will focus on embedding and scaling approaches to transform care and support including for unpaid carers, who play such a vital, selfless role in our society. This will accelerate progress towards the government’s social care vision where people have choice, control and support to live independent lives, and where care and support is of outstanding quality and is provided in a fair, accessible way.

Local authorities are invited to register their interest with the DHSC by 12 January 2024, in partnership with others in their integrated care systems, to fund local innovation projects. Local authorities will be guided by a list of priorities, and are expected to work collaboratively with others such as the NHS, care providers, voluntary and community sector groups, including unpaid carers.

DHSC has appointed SCIE to provide hands-on support to local areas in developing local partnerships and delivering projects, ensuring participants benefit from valuable shared learnings, peer support and expert insights across the country. With a wealth of trusted expertise in working collaboratively to help local areas transform care, SCIE will help identify issues and challenges, galvanising co-production and ensuring people who need care and unpaid carers are at the heart of the programme.

The ARF will support at least two projects per region, one of which will focus on unpaid carers, and consider co-production with both care recipients and unpaid carers, ensuring they are inclusive of local diverse needs.

The ARF is a learning programme, so SCIE has an essential role in gathering evidence on how to successfully tackle the barriers to scaling up innovation in social care, alongside a national evaluation partner.

The national evaluation partner will be evaluating whether the programme has been successful at tackling the barriers to innovation, the success of SCIE’s support offer, and the ways local areas can continue to scale and adopt new innovations after the grant has been delivered. Projects will be evaluated to inform future decisions on embedding models of care in the community and overcome barriers by providing evidence on efficacy for future practice.

SCIE will be running a series of information sessions about the fund, what’s expected from programme participants and how to apply for funding.

The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has launched a £42.6 million Accelerating Reform Fund (ARF) to boost the quality and accessibility of adult social care by supporting innovation and scaling, and kickstarting a change in services to support unpaid carers.

The Accelerating Reform Fund will focus on embedding and scaling approaches to transform care and support including for unpaid carers, who play such a vital, selfless role in our society. This will accelerate progress towards the government’s social care vision where people have choice, control and support to live independent lives, and where care and support is of outstanding quality and is provided in a fair, accessible way.

Local authorities are invited to register their interest with the DHSC by 12 January 2024, in partnership with others in their integrated care systems, to fund local innovation projects. Local authorities will be guided by a list of priorities, and are expected to work collaboratively with others such as the NHS, care providers, voluntary and community sector groups, including unpaid carers.

DHSC has appointed SCIE to provide hands-on support to local areas in developing local partnerships and delivering projects, ensuring participants benefit from valuable shared learnings, peer support and expert insights across the country. With a wealth of trusted expertise in working collaboratively to help local areas transform care, SCIE will help identify issues and challenges, galvanising co-production and ensuring people who need care and unpaid carers are at the heart of the programme.

The ARF will support at least two projects per region, one of which will focus on unpaid carers, and consider co-production with both care recipients and unpaid carers, ensuring they are inclusive of local diverse needs.

The ARF is a learning programme, so SCIE has an essential role in gathering evidence on how to successfully tackle the barriers to scaling up innovation in social care, alongside a national evaluation partner.

The national evaluation partner will be evaluating whether the programme has been successful at tackling the barriers to innovation, the success of SCIE’s support offer, and the ways local areas can continue to scale and adopt new innovations after the grant has been delivered. Projects will be evaluated to inform future decisions on embedding models of care in the community and overcome barriers by providing evidence on efficacy for future practice.

SCIE will be running a series of information sessions about the fund, what’s expected from programme participants and how to apply for funding.

Expression of Interest

Local authorities are invited to register their interest with the DHSC by 12 January 2024, in partnership with others in their integrated care systems. Click here.

Webinars

SCIE will run two webinars about the ARF programme on 14 and 27 November. Click here. "