Statement from Nuffield Health
Written by Dr Davina Deniszczyc
Charity and Medical Director, Responsible Officer at Nuffield Health
Ingenuity’s drive to strengthen communities, improve health and tackle climate change aligns with Nuffield Health’s purpose, to build a healthier nation, and we are united through our passion and commitment to deliver meaningful impact to individuals, communities and society.
We are proud to partner with Ingenuity through this inspiring programme of initiatives that support young people from under-served groups. We’re all too aware of the health inequalities experienced in local communities across the nation. By nurturing tomorrow’s talent via this initiative, we can contribute to eradicating health inequality and together improve the health and wellbeing of the nation.
Driving social mobility
It’s also important that we measure the impact of this work to ensure it is meaningful and to understand how we can have even greater impact in the future. We do this via our Social Return on Investment framework. That is, the amount of benefit we deliver to society by providing a certain service or form of support. It was clear to me that the Ingenuity programme had the potential to deliver meaningful, measurable change and aligned perfectly with Nuffield Health’s public benefit strategy which focuses on:
- improving the lives of people in underserved groups/living with low resources in local communities;
- reducing health inequalities;
- and improving the environment within communities focusing on sustainability, reducing climate change and achieving carbon zero targets.
When you add in the focus of the programme to support those from underserved groups to get involved in civic entrepreneurship, the Ingenuity and Nuffield Health partnership is a perfect fit.
This year’s programme has been an incredibly exciting start to our partnership and the Nuffield Health sponsored start-ups present a wide range of inspiring initiatives that will impact the communities. We’re so humbled by the incredible support these initiatives will provide, including enriching the lives of people living with dementia, increasing access to the outdoors for people living with lower resources, combatting loneliness and giving a vital lifeline to people experiencing domestic violence. We believe that we can truly start to tackle some of the UK’s social and environmental challenges by supporting the creation of these innovative start-ups.
We’re also very proud to have directly supported this year’s participants; through providing expertise in areas such as input into training resources, business mentoring of around 70 budding changemakers, and acting as regional and national judges. Over 60 Nuffield Health employees have actively participated in the 2022 programme, greatly enriching their own working environment and increasing their appreciation of the challenges that society faces. Each person involved has been inspired by the drive and passion of the participants they have connected with and learned a huge amount from hearing about the lived experience of the changemakers and helping them shape their passions into a viable business plan.
Celebrating the Class of 2022
At the recent National Ingenuity Showcase, the Class of 2022 were able to show their business ideas to a wider audience, including Nuffield Health and our corporate clients. After a long period of meetings over Teams it was an amazing opportunity for participants, the Nuffield Health and Ingenuity team to meet up. The comradeship on the day, between everybody involved was inspirational. Lord Victor Adebowale, CBE, non-Executive Director of Nuffield Health and Chair of Social Enterprise UK, although unable to be there, provided an inspiring pre–recorded speech regarding the importance of supporting social enterprise.
Enabling civic entrepreneurship
This is not the end, but just the start of Nuffield Health’s partnership with Ingenuity. We look forward to supporting this year’s winners in the months to come, seeing how their ideas develop and thrive going forward. With the Ingenuity team we are exploring various ways in which we can collaborate, or support, some of the other existing participants on the programme, building on the great relationships we have developed so far. We can’t wait to help find the civic entrepreneurs for 2023 when we continue the partnership with Ingenuity for another year! In the meantime, we’re busy evaluating the impact of this year’s programme for both participants, communities and society and we’re exploring exciting developments of the Ingenuity programme.
Together Nuffield Health and the Ingenuity team at the University of Nottingham will ensure the term ‘civic entrepreneurship’ is recognised both as a term, but more importantly as a verb…not simply a set of actions of a state of being, but about being supported to actively pursue value and meaningful impact on society.
To find out more about Nuffield Health please visit www.nuffieldhealth.com
