New funding call-out for improving health equity through a population health approach

Projects should address health inequity in the areas of greatest need within our local populations of Lambeth and Southwark (see information pack, figure 2*, appendix 2). These are described in further detail in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessments for Southwark and Lambeth:

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment  | Southwark Council

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment – JSNA | Lambeth Council

If applicants recognise a need in groups that are not described in the JSNA, these can be considered as long as the need is justified.

Projects must demonstrate:

• A clear problem statement and proposed innovative change idea.
• Evidence of how the project will address at least one of the priorities in the 10 Year Health Plan for the NHS.
• A clear and relevant plan to demonstrate impact including evaluation and outcome measures.
• An intention to test and scale a project that would demonstrate sustainability either in changing current practice or changes to commissioning.
• A multidisciplinary team approach and cross speciality working.
• Co-production with communities / patients / carers.
• An evidence base for effectiveness of the proposed project based on robust data sources.

Ideally, the project would also:

• Deliver integrated care models and improved ways of working between specialist, community and primary care.
• Be completed within 24 months, but we welcome projects that can run to shorter timeframes.

More information is available in the information pack.

We would not support projects which:

• Focus principally on benefits for staff, including training and capability development. Support for staff is an important area for the charity, and we are supporting initiatives such as ‘Showing We Care About You’.
• Replicate or extend an existing initiative that is potentially financed through normal business planning.
• Have intermediate outcomes or outputs that do not lead to immediate measurable improvements for patients, for example a research project.

All services in Integrated Specialist Medicine and Heart Lung Critical Care are eligible to apply, along with teams from non-cancer gynaecology, maternity bereavement and non-cancer surgery.

Due to the restrictions of our charitable funding, projects exclusively for cancer, child health or maternity services are not eligible for this call-out. These are under the remit of the Guy’s Cancer Charity and Evelina London Children’s Charity.

To maximise impact, we believe larger scale change projects will be most effective and anticipate funding a small number of larger value initiatives. We advise that applicants request funding in the region of £100,000 – £200,000, if putting forward a project which aims for large scale change. For this call-out, the maximum that can be applied for is £250,000.

Applications of a smaller size are also welcome which have a strong fit with the theme of the call-out.

Please submit a brief description of your idea at the link below by 6 October 2025. Please preface your proposal title with the initials “IHE” to allow us to identify your idea.

We will invite eligible projects to submit a full application in mid to late October.

All applications will be considered at our February 2026 funding committee. Prior to this our patient and carer panel will give feedback on the bids.

Please note: if you submit an application that we consider to be out of scope, we may still share information about you and your project with the Trust. We would do this in the interest of offering you additional guidance or signposting to other opportunities relevant to the project. We may also share information if we think additional help would benefit your application.

Please note that successful projects should not start for at least 3 months after funding award is confirmed to allow for Charity processes to be completed.

For more information, please download our information pack.