This new £2m fund that will support services that use social action to help older people stay well, manage their conditions or recover from illness or injury, and thereby reduce pressure on hospitals.
Grants are now available to help Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprises (VCSEs) and local NHS/social care organisations to develop innovative social action interventions that provide extra support to older people and help reduce pressure on hospitals this coming winter (2014/15).
Projects will be funded that:
• Focus on benefits to England only
• Have volunteers as core to the delivery of the service
• Have letter(s) of support from the relevant local Urgent Care Working Group(s)
• Are from organisation(s) in a position to accept a grant offer by July/August 2014 and spend this by end of March 2015
• Primarily use funding for revenue costs, with no expenditure on capital items with a value in excess of £5,000
• Comply with State Aid guidelines
How much money will be available through the Fund?
The total size of the fund available is £2million, up to £200,000 of which may be spent on evaluation.
It is anticipated that the average grant size will be approximately £200,000, but in exceptional cases funding up to £400,000 will be considered.
What will be funded?
Projects based in hospitals and/or in the community that use social action to provide extra support to older people and reduce pressure on hospitals. The fund is interested in projects which have the potential to positively impact on one or more of the following:
• A&E attendance
• emergency admissions to hospital
• delayed discharges from hospital
• emergency readmissions to hospital
• patient satisfaction
Funding will be provided to projects that:
• can mobilise/scale-up rapidly
• can give some confidence they will have the impact the fund is looking for
• can use their support to move from the margins to mainstream delivery
• have volunteers as a core element for their delivery
The fund are interested in funding projects that:
• are building on an existing service or existing set-up work, for instance by scaling up the service to reach a larger group of people or operate across a larger geography
• are building on services with some promising indication of impact, or are innovations with a well-evidenced hypothesis for why such a service should work
• are innovations or are building on small-scale existing services, and therefore have significant potential to be scaled up
• involve volunteers as a core element for delivery
For further information and to apply, visit: www.sibgroup.org.uk/hospitalfund/ or contact 0207 842 7788, or email: [email protected]
Deadline: Friday 13 June 2014, 12:00