NIHR CRN NENC Funding Model 2022/23

  • Published: 11 May 2022
  • Version: V1.0
  • 2 min read

Agreed Model for 2022-23

These include the following summarised sections:

Strategic Funding

Strategic Funding should total 2% of the allocation and should include some monies in relation to the Quality Improvement Incentive Scheme (to be confirmed via Executive Group). This will not total more than 0.5%. Funding could run for longer than 12 months, having first "call" on the next year's Strategic Funding allocation.

Baseline Allocation & Activity Forecast Total

Baseline allocations consist of two parts: a historic element and a variable element. The historic element is a fixed amount based on 80% the amount of the previous year’s total allocation plus a COVID 19 uplift. A variable element (20%) is added to this based on a forecast activity.

The forecast element is based upon a Partner Organisation being able to show LPMS data that indicates that with studies open and studies planned to open in Q4 2021-22) and Q1 2022-23 their mean accrual total across these two time points will be equal to or greater than their Q3 2020-21 to Q2 2021-22 quarterly average.

If Partners can demonstrate this they will receive their full 20% variable element from 2021-22. If the forecast data fall below this threshold then 5% of the 20% variable element will be withheld from the baseline allocation. This ‘withheld’ funding is to be included in 2022-23 contingency funding.

A budget has been created for both Primary Care and also Non-NHS Settings as a pseudo Partner Organisation. While Primary Care had the above principles applied, Non-NHS Setting had flat funding but was not subject to revised model due to the imbalance of COVID activity attributed to the setting in the timeframe and the usual research activity in this setting.

COVID Cap and Collar

The purpose of employing a budget cap and collar is to prevent large year-on-year swings in PO budgets. We identified that a sizeable amount of COVID research activity was attributed to the Non-NHS setting. This would have created a budget the setting could not spend. This additional budget was then distributed to Partner Organisations that had contributed to COVID research pro rata. We put a cap of +5% on this funding and added any unspent monies to the 2022-23 contingency funding.

Host and Core Budget

Combined Host & Core Budget allocation to be 15% of overall allocation.

Overhead

Overhead to be maintained at 4%.

Programmed Activities

PA allocations to each Specialty Group will be rolled over from 2021-22. Primary Care has a separate allocation for leadership and Green shoots within their budget. Total allocation is £1,291,485.

This funding was utilised in three schemes 1) Greenshoots 2) Research Delivery Awards and 3) Research Delivery Fellows.

17% (£219,552) has been top-sliced for Greenshoots, and a further 5% (£64,574) to support the Research Delivery Fellows scheme. The final total allocation for RDAs is 78% (£1,007,359).

Each award is not more than £4,500 per annum. This budget is used to fund Clinical time, Fellow time, support Green shoots and Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals (NMAHP) time within agreed guidelines.

Leadership Awards

As required by the Performance and Operating Framework contract Leadership awards are given for all Specialty Group Leads and Executive members. These amount to a value of £10,000 per Programmed Activity (PA) (i.e. 0.5 day per week per annum). Specialty Group Leads and Executive members are awarded 0.5 PA.

The Clinical Director is awarded 4 PAs and the Deputy Clinical Director is awarded 2 PAs.

Further Leadership roles are remunerated at no more than 0.5 PA.