The West Yorkshire and Harrogate Innovation Award Scheme is an annual non-recurrent, revenue-only, financial awards scheme which seeks to:

• Promote innovation in cancer care.
• Encourage the adoption, acceleration, and deployment of best practice.
• Support the strategic objectives of the Cancer Alliance.
• Ensure that available cancer transformation funding responds to needs identified locally, as well as those taken from policy priorities nationally.
• Create opportunities to improve early diagnosis and patient experience by reducing health inequalities in line with the NHS Long Term Plan.

This year the scheme will align to the National Cancer Plan and WY & H population priorities with a focus on innovation projects that support:

• Digital transformation
• Improving experience of cancer care to address health inequalities in black and minority ethnic communities, LGBTQIA+ communities, people affected by SMI and people affected by learning difficulties.
• Improving psychosocial support for parents and families with a young person diagnosed with cancer.
• Exploring innovative and inclusive methods for gathering meaningful Quality of Life feedback from communities that are traditionally under represented or seldom heard communities.
• Novel use of genomic testing for case-finding purposes, diagnostics and point of care testing to accelerate cancer pathways, case-finding approaches for rarer cancers other than pancreatic.

Funding

Funding for 2026/2027 Innovation Award Scheme will equate to £800K in total.

This funding opportunity will operate as a single competitive pot open to Trust, Place and VCSE organisations. Applicants may request £10,000–£100,000 for 1 year projects or £15,000–£150,000 for 2 year projects (amounts inclusive of VAT). Successful applicants must ensure that all awarded funds are fully accounted for in the 2026/27 financial year.

There will be no guaranteed direct award or amount allocated to each Trust, Place or VCSE organisation.

Monies will be distributed across Trust, Place and VCSE at the discretion of the Cancer Alliance.

What will not be funded?

• Front-line clinical posts
• Any proposal where there is not clear recruitment, procurement, contracting, IT support or information governance demonstrated.
• Corporate transformation posts
• Capital projects
• Extension of previously funded Cancer Alliance Innovation Award Scheme projects
• Applications from a team/ organisation that have not shown evidence of implementing innovation projects previously awarded funding through Cancer Alliance Innovation Award scheme rounds.
• Where funding has already been allocated through SDF monies

Application Conditions

Stakeholders may submit either single, or multiple, funding proposals within this envelope. Joint proposals from more than one Trust, Place or VCSE sector are also allowed provided the overall funding cap is not exceeded.

Where a project involves contracting, recruitment, procurement, IT support and Information governance relevant sign-off must be in place before submission to the Cancer Alliance.

To access funding applicants must complete an application form. Applications must have evidence of sign-off from the following:

Scheme Evidence of sign-off
Trust Application Cancer Lead Manager & Finance Lead
Place Application PCN Lead or GP Federation Lead
VCSE Application Charity Lead (including evidence of registered charity)

Focus for Applications

The focus of applications should align with the themes of the National Cancer Plan and target areas not otherwise supported through SDF funding.

To help guide the development of proposals for 2026/27, the following principles are proposed. Each bid should align with at least one of the innovative project areas outlined below.

Trust bids:

• Robotic process automation, digital pathology, ambient voice technology and workflow optimisation
• Genomic testing for case-finding purposes
• Diagnostics and point of care testing to accelerate cancer pathways
• Case-finding approaches for rarer cancers other than pancreatic cancer
• Improving psychosocial support for parents and families with a young person diagnosed with cancer.
• Improving experience of cancer care for people affected by rarer and less survivable cancers
• Improving experience of cancer for black and minority ethnic communities, LGBTQIA+ communities, people affected by SMI and people affected by learning difficulties.

Place bids:

• Robotic process automation, workflow optimisation and access to prehabilitation and rehabilitation services
• Improving experience of cancer for black and minority ethnic communities, lgbtqia+ communities, people affected by SMI and people affected by learning difficulties.
• Improving psychosocial support for parents and families with a young person diagnosed with cancer.
• Improving experience of cancer care for people affected by rarer and less survivable cancers
• Genomic testing for case-finding purposes
• Diagnostics and point of care testing to accelerate cancer pathways
• Case-finding approaches for rarer cancers other than pancreatic cancer
• Novel use of technology to boost participation rates in existing national cancer screening programmes (cervical, bowel, breast and lung)

VCSE bids:

• Digital access to prehabilitation and rehabilitation services
• Improving experience of cancer for black and minority ethnic communities, LGBTQIA+ communities, people affected by SMI and people affected by learning difficulties.
• Improving psychosocial support for parents and families with a young person diagnosed with cancer.
• Improving experience of cancer care for people affected by rarer and less survivable cancers
• Novel methods for gathering meaningful Quality of Life feedback within under represented or seldom heard communities.

Criteria for Application Form

The criteria for all schemes across Trust, Place and VCSE will include:

• Novel Innovation (Is the Innovation new or a development on an existing innovation)
• Benefits to patients (Does it help to improve the patient experience for example)
• Sustainability (Can it fund itself long term after the Innovation funding has been spent?)
• Initiatives that target the 20% most deprived populations who experience health inequalities.
• Measurement of impact (What is the impact & how is this recorded and measured?)

Proposed Timescales

1st July 2026 - Applications Open
Socialise Innovation Award Scheme via various communication channels. Applicants will be required to complete an application form detailing their innovation and how it meets the criteria outlined previously.

Monday 10th August 2026 - Applications Closed

W/C 24th August 2026 - Shortlisting Panels

W/C 7th September 2026 - Interviews

Shortlisted applicants will be invited to an interview to deliver a short presentation and answer key questions in relation to their chosen innovation.

Applicants invited to interview, will be asked to develop an outline project plan, describing the anticipated milestones and timescales for implementation (past experience shows that bidders who have mapped this out are able to mobilise their schemes more quickly).

After the interviews, the panel will review the outcomes from the application and interview process and agree on the successful applications.

Mid September 2026 - Funding Awarded
Successful and Unsuccessful schemes will be notified by email.