This award will recognise innovative practice within an acute care setting, which improves the delivery of services and experience for patients and service users.

As well as the core criteria, assessors will be looking for evidence of:

• Staff involvement: The initial idea of the innovation having been generated from front-line staff or evidence that a deep level of staff engagement has taken place in order to implement the new practice
• Patient involvement: The innovation having been designed around patients and service users - with evidence that their views and feedback about their experiences have been sought, analysed and implemented in the design
• Demonstrable change: Measurement of how the innovation has improved the experience for patients, service users, carers or staff
• Impact: How many people have been helped by this innovation, and how profound is the difference
• Practical application: For example, the innovation saves clinical staff time, makes a process safer, simplifies a pathway, resolves a common problem in acute care
• Consideration of spread: Clear thinking around how the innovative practice will be sustained, and adopted and spread more widely
• Real originality and inventiveness: Which may be in the form of a change to an existing practice, or a completely new way of working
• Patient safety: Evidence of increased patient / user safety