Understanding How and Why the NHS Adopts Innovation

The literature on adoption of innovations is complex and varied. The goal is to provide an overview of how the complexity of healthcare interventions may be mapped onto many areas of theoretical thinking.

The study has offered the opportunity to reflect on the role of theory in exploring innovation adoption in healthcare. Theory has an important role in both guiding and learning from the adoption process. As such, there may be an opportunity to further synthesise the theoretical work to better understand the organisational pull factors as well as capturing the unique and generalisable learning around the organisational contexts impacted by the innovations. A more in-depth understanding of the negotiation process could underpin improved translation of adoption between contexts and accumulate the valuable learning generated by each adoption journey.