Health Innovation West of England recently hosted an Introduction to Evaluation webinar led by Ruth Barker, Senior Insights Manager in our Evaluation and Insights team.
Designed to demystify the evaluation process for healthcare innovators, the session explored the question: “What evidence and evaluation is required to be successful in the NHS?”
The webinar outlined three critical questions that every innovator must address to demonstrate value within the health and social care system.
- Does it work? (impact evaluation)
This focuses on understanding if an innovation, new model of care, or role achieves its intended outcomes. - Why and how does it work? (process evaluation)
This examines the implementation journey, identifying barriers and facilitators that influence success. - Is it worth it? (economic evaluation)
This assesses the financial and economic viability of the innovation.
Watch the webinar recording on YouTube.
Evidence is not “one size fits all”
One of the main takeaways from the session is the importance of being deliberative and pragmatic regarding evidence. While randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are often viewed as the gold standard in research, Ruth Barker emphasised that real-world evaluation can be useful for decision-making.
Innovators are encouraged to focus on the hierarchy of evidence and choose methodologies, such as quasi-experimental studies, cohort studies, or qualitative descriptive studies, that are most robust and appropriate for their specific evaluation needs.
Key to this choice is understanding the needs of commissioners and decision-makers; for example, if a commissioner prioritises patient experience, a qualitative focus may be more persuasive than purely numerical data.
What’s your theory of change?
To avoid the risk of missing critical data or not fully understanding the problem needing to be solved, the webinar highlighted the need for early planning by developing a theory of change. This process maps out how specific activities lead to outputs, outcomes, and long-term impacts, helping innovators identify:
- Mechanisms of change: what behaviours are driving the results?
- Unintended consequences: could a benefit in one part of the system cause a “dis-benefit” or higher burden elsewhere?
- Measurement frameworks: identifying the source of data, who owns the data and how it will be collected to prevent “missing data gaps” later.
Economic evaluation and “finding the unicorn”
The session also explored health economics, using a cost-effectiveness plane to categorise innovations. The ultimate goal for many is “finding the unicorn”: an innovation that is more effective and less costly than current practices.
However, most innovations generally sit in the more costly but more effective category, necessitating a clear business case to prove the investment is worth the improved patient outcomes.
Support for innovators
Through our Innovation Exchange, innovators can access resources, networking opportunities, and one-to-one support to help match their innovation journey with the right evidence-gathering tools.
Join our next webinar
Our new webinar in the series will take place on Wednesday 11 February 2026, and will dive deeper into Implementation Economics. Book your place here.
Posted on December 19, 2025
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