NIHR CRN NENC Funding Model 2023/24

  • Published: 28 March 2023
  • Version: V1.0
  • 2 min read

Agreed Model for 2023-24

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 schemes such as Greenshoots that could run for longer than 12 months, are agreed to be priority considerations for any suitable funding in the RRDN 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 2022-23) and Q1 2023-24 their mean accrual total across these two time points will be equal to or greater than their Q3 2021-22 to Q2 2022-23 quarterly average.

If Partners can demonstrate this they will receive their full 20% variable element from 2022-23. 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 2023-24 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.

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 2022-23. Primary Care has a separate allocation for leadership and Green shoots within their budget. Total allocation is £1,3331,132.
This funding was utilised in three schemes 1) Green shoots 2) Research Delivery Awards and 3) Research Delivery Fellows.

28% (£375,500) has been top-sliced for Green shoots, and a further 5% (£64,574) to support the Research Delivery Fellows scheme. The final total allocation for RDAs is 67% (£891,058).

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 from the Leadership budget.

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

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