We offer below two publications, Leading the Spread and Adoption of Innovation and Improvement: A Practical Guide and Approaches to Spread and Scale, along with blogs, case studies and videos to support you to enable the spread and scale of innovation and improvement.

To understand the challenges of spread and scale and to hear about these two publications watch this video.
Leading the Spread and Adoption of Innovation and Improvement: A Practical Guide
This ‘Leading the Spread and Adoption of Innovation and Improvement: A Practical Guide’, a NHS England publication produced by the NHS Horizons team, offers seven interconnected principles and a way of leading to apply them in practice, developed from knowledge and experience. The practical tools and methods, and case studies pages will help you apply these to your work along with the further information pages which provide a depth of detail and knowledge.
A great way to get an overview of the Guide is to watch the video recording of the introductory webinar here, the slide set is here and blog here. More details on the Guide is here.
Relational, interpersonal elements of spread and adoption – looking at how people can work together – is a common thread within each of the principles. More information on the seven interconnected principles available in this introductory blog, our short recording here, in the blogs below and in detail in the Guide.
More information on the model of systems convening available in our short recording here, and the blogs below and in detail in the Guide.
Approaches to Spread and Scale
This is a unique resource to help leaders select the most appropriate methods and levers, to enable the spread and scale of innovation and improvement, to achieve their goals. We have collated all the methods and levers into seven approaches listed in the sketchnote below. More details of all these approaches, to help selection of which to use and when, in the publication here and summarised in this blog.
Blogs, videos and case studies on Spread, Scale, Adoption and Systems Convening
Blogs
- The Voltage Effect – Scaling Best Practice
- A New and Unique Resource to help you Spread and Scale Innovation and Improvement
- How behavioural science can help us spread and scale innovation and improvement
- How the FutureNHS virtual workspace enables spread of improvement and innovation through collaboration and learning.
- Leading the Spread and Adoption of Innovation and Improvement: Insights through the national Fractional exhaled Nitric Oxide (FeNO) testing programme
- Introducing Systems Convening Practices into a Project Management Environment – 3 lessons
- Systems Convening in Practice – a Chat with Madi Hoskin
- How the ‘Leading the Spread and Adoption of Innovation and Improvement: A Practical Guide’ can help in practice
- How the Seven Spread and Adoption Principles Work in Practice: the Continuing Healthcare Improvement Collaborative case study
- Planning For Spread and Adoption From The Start: A Novel Model For Success
- Introduction to the Seven Interconnected Principles for Spread and Adoption, with accompanying blogs for each of the seven interconnected principles: Complexity, Leadership, Individual, Benefit, Adopters, Networks and Learning.
- Understanding and Working with Complexity
- ‘That’s what I do’ – voluntary partnerships, complexity and an activity named system convening’
- ‘Adaptive Spaces’ for an emerging future
- Why an ‘Enabling Leadership’ Style is Needed for Innovation, Spread and Adoption
- The Importance of Local Adaptation in Innovation Spread and Adoption
- COVID-19 Crisis: Creating Adaptive Spaces and Enabling the Spread and Adoption of Innovation
- COVID-19 – A Complexity Leadership Response
- Adaptive Spaces, Networks…. and a Challenge Called Spread
- Spread and Complexity in the NHS
- Do We Have the Three Types of People Needed for Scale and Spread in the NHS?
- Looking at Spread – Three Helpful Lenses
- Moving to Action: Spreading and Scaling Change Session at Expo 2019
Case studies
These case studies illustrate how the 7 spread and adoption principles and the model of system convening apply in practice.
- How the FutureNHS virtual workspace enables spread of improvement and innovation through collaboration and learning, blog.
- Leading the Spread and Adoption of Innovation and Improvement: Insights through the national Fractional exhaled Nitric Oxide (FeNO) testing programme, video and blog.
- A winning partnership – System Convening combined with Programme Management improves patient experience: full video here, short video here and blog here.
- A winning combination: programme management with system convening to develop and spread the BASIC STEP tool in North West Ambulance Service (NWAS): video here and blog.
- Spread, adoption and systems convening: the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust (WAST) falls framework: video here and ‘Complexity and System Convening – a lightbulb moment’ blog here.
Case Study from AHSN network
Improving Detection and Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation Across England, April 2021 details here
Videos
- The Voltage Effect – Scaling Best Practice video
- How behavioural science can help us spread and scale innovation and improvement, video.
- Spread and Adoption Principles – Learning from the National FeNO programme, video.
- Systems convening in practice – a chat with Madi Hoskins, video (19 mins)
- Systems convening: its role in the spread of innovation and improvement, Q community zoom, video and slides
- Systems convening and the spread and adoption of innovations and improvements, short video (4 mins)
- The New Mindset and the Seven Spread and Adoption Principles Explained video
- Mary Uhl-Bien in Conversation: COVID-19, complexity leadership and spread of innovation, video.
- What is Adaptive space? a Brief Introduction by Gareth Evans (2 mins) video.
- Adaptive Space in Action by Matthew Mezey (4 mins) video.
- Adaptive space – Overview of the work of Mary Uhl-Bien by Diane Ketley (4 mins) video, and related blog with links and details ‘Adaptive Spaces’ for an emerging future
Further reading
- NHS Confederation. Scaling innovation within healthcare systems – Practical considerations 2023
- AHSN Network. Review of spread and adoption approaches across the AHSN network. 2021.
- Wenger-Trayner. Systems Convening: A crucial form of leadership for the 21st century 2021
- Care Quality Commission Enabling innovation and adoption in health and social care: Developing a shared view. 2021.
- Nuffield Trust Achieving scale and spread. 2020.
- The Health Foundation. The spread challenge. 2018
- Innovation Unit and Health Foundation. Against the odds: Successfully scaling innovation in the NHS. 2018.
- King’s Fund. Adoption and spread of innovation in the NHS. 2018
- Nuffield Trust. Falling short: Why the NHS is still struggling to make the most of new innovations. 2017.
- Braithwaite, J. Changing how we think about healthcare improvement, BMJ 2018; 361: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k2014
Get in touch
We would love to hear your feedback on this content. Any comments or questions please email mlcsu.horizons@nhs.net.
Page last reviewed: 04 March 2024