Website of the Department of Health

Innovation for Life Challenge Fund

The Innovation for Life Challenge Fund has been developed in collaboration with the Social Enterprise Coalition. It is an invitation to local health and social care commissioners and their partners to propose innovative ways of using social enterprise solutions to meet local health and well-being challenges and to tackle health inequalities.

This is an opportunity for commissioners to demonstrate a world class commissioning approach by identifying the needs of their population, gaps in provision and clear strategic outcomes that can be addressed by collaborative social enterprise solutions and third sector/social enterprise provider and market development.

Strategic health authorities will be able to bid for up to £100,000 revenue funding to support the commissioning of innovative cross-sector social enterprise solutions.  This funding could be used to:

• develop cross-sector social enterprise networks.
• support social enterprises to provide whole-systems solutions to become ‘commissionable’ or investment ready, ie, social enterprise ‘incubation’.
• support local communities to develop social enterprise solutions to health and well-being issues.
• engage with PCT and LA commissioners.
• project management costs of the above.

Strategic health authorities and their local partners will be expected to provide local funding equivalent to 25% of the funding they receive from the ‘Innovation for Life Challenge Fund’.

We will be writing to strategic health authorities with details of how to apply to the Innovation for Life Challenge Fund and the process for assessing proposals.

• Innovation for Life Challenge Fund: Letter from Ivan Lewis, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Care Services, to Chief Executives at Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts
• Social Enterprise: 'Innovation for Life Challenge Fund'