Fire up your engines - new £2m Project Launch Fund aims to blast away barriers to change!

The Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Integrated Care Board has set up a new £2m Project Launch Fund with the aim of funding grass-roots ideas that improve the healthcare and wellbeing of patients and staff in our local healthcare system.

Staff members of NHS organisations, and people working in the voluntary sector will be able to bid for a share of the fund to make a change they’ve always wanted, to make their working lives better or to improve the wellbeing of our patients and communities.

From 1st March, bids are being invited for a share of the £2m ‘Project Launch Fund’. The scheme will remain open until the resource has been fully committed.

The Fund is run by the LLR Academy, which is looking for ideas that break down barriers to the delivery of great care, projects that tackle the ‘if only we had…’ or ‘if only we could…’ questions, or fixes the things that have been bothering people, once and for all. Sustainability is key too, as the ideas must have a long-lasting impact.

Your idea could be for an environmental improvement to a building/patient area, for equipment, for training or ways of transforming the way teams work. It could be for a project that just needs £100 to get it off the ground, to bigger ideas that may require thousands of pounds. Great examples of grass roots ideas include new skylights that bring natural light into a windowless dementia ward to revolutionise day to day life for patients; an activity-focused wheelchair group to improve wellbeing and quality of life through exercise; and an app and dedicated nurse to raise awareness of tissue donation at the end of life.

The application process has been made as simple as possible so that anyone at any level can apply. There are no unwieldy forms or complicated criteria and applications will be reviewed on a fortnightly basis with decisions being made at each of those meetings. Successful projects can expect to receive their funding within a couple of weeks.

To find out more about the Project Launch Fund, including Frequently Asked Questions, and how to apply, go to the LLR academy website