Implementation of the Regional Integration Fund: October 2024 to May 2025

Group concept mapping report

This report presents the findings from the second online Group Concept Mapping (GCM) study, conducted as part of the National Evaluation of the Health and Social Care Regional Integration Fund (RIF). 

The study sought to build and consolidate findings from the year two Qualitative Interviews Report by sense-testing the key findings and conclusions with a wider group of RIF stakeholders.

The report provides a clearer picture and insight into the most and least recognised experiences of RIF, and the most and least influential statements in the implementation of RIF to date.

The most recognised and most influential statement was ‘Uncertainties regarding longer-term term funding poses risks to the sustainability of RIF projects/services’, while the least recognised and least influential statement was ‘Amalgamating smaller initiatives into larger umbrella projects has improved reporting structures’.

Third sector respondents rated ‘Partnerships especially with the third sector’ as most recognised as being part of their experience of RIF, and most influential in the implementation of RIF.

Statutory sector respondents rated ‘Learning from experience’ as most recognised as being part of their experience of RIF, and most influential in the implementation of RIF.

Clusters ‘Data, monitoring and reporting’ and ‘Innovation’ were the least recognised and influential clusters irrespective of participant sector and level of involvement in RIF.

Qualitative interviews report

This report provides findings from qualitative interviews with Regional Partnership Board (RPB) leads, conducted as part of the implementation stage of the National Evaluation of the Health and Social Care Regional Integration Fund (RIF).

It assesses the extent to which there has been successful progress in terms of the RIF’s design and development and its implementation to date, as well as perspectives on the usefulness of the RIF Communities of Practice (CoPs).

The report finds that the RIF has been used as intended to support a wide spectrum of services, from acute care interventions to preventative measures.

It outlines a spectrum of progression across the RIF programme, encompassing existing, evolving and emerging projects.

Findings show that strong partnership working and joint management are key components of effective RIF projects and that the voluntary sector has a crucial role within RIF projects in some regions by enhancing services and addressing gaps.

The flexibility of RIF funding and the regional infrastructure and resource put in place was found to have enabled projects to innovate and adapt to changing needs.

The report also finds that RIF is enabling projects to deliver earlier intervention but highlights the length of time required to embed the system-wide behaviour change and service integration that RIF ultimately aspires to facilitate and achieve.

The CoPs were found to facilitate engagement between different sectors, providing opportunities to hear a mixture of perspectives, and to allow members to keep up to date with national and regional policy developments, share good practice and share learning.

The effectiveness and cost benefit of integrated health and social care programmes in the United Kingdom and Ireland: a rapid review

This is a systematic literature review, conducted as part of the economic evaluation of the Health and Social Care Regional Integration Fund (RIF).

The review finds that there is mixed effectiveness and economic evidence demonstrating the benefits of integrated health and social care initiatives, with varied economic evidence on costs, beneficial outcomes, and return on investment for integrated care approaches.

Recommendations are that more high-quality economic evaluations are needed and that future economic studies should be tailored to the different policy context of the UK.

Experiences of implementing the principles of the RIF in practice

This report builds on the work conducted in Year 1 of the National Evaluation of the Regional Integration Fund (RIF) and addresses questions of RIF implementation.

It also reflects on changes to the policy and political context, including increasing momentum around the development of the ‘Integrated Community Care System’ for Wales.

The report assesses progress of the ‘balance’ within a series of 6 ‘dyads’, which offer a way of ‘sense-making’ the complexity of RIF and capturing the interplay between its principles, values, concepts and constructs. Findings indicate that, overall, there are grounds for optimism as seen in the balance of the dyads – this picture is a broadly positive one based on the experience of implementation. Subsequent stages of the evaluation will be able to determine whether the dyads in balance (or close to being in balance) allow RIF to deliver the ‘desired results’ of the programme, in consideration of the dynamic policy, strategic and operational contexts that bear on the implementation of the fund.