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Governments around the world seek to design policies that enhance the innovative capacity of public service. Hence, identifying the underlying meanings attributed to innovation concepts in public policies is critical, as these very understandings inform not only the policy discourses, but also the overall institutional landscape regulating innovation activities. This paper examines such fundamental definitional aspects in the specific context of the National Health Service in England. For this purpose, it traces the evolution of the innovation concept in policy discourse based on the analysis of 21 key policy documents published or commissioned by the English Department of Health between 1948 and 2015. Systematic analysis of these texts reveals that policymakers’ conception of healthcare innovation broadened considerably over time. English health innovation policy initially focused on basic biomedical research. Subsequently, it entered a transitional period, zeroing in on science- and technology-based innovation. Finally, this focus gradually shifted to a broader conception of innovation translating into health, economic, and service design benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the role of hospitals in implementing innovation in health care service system and innovativeness-performance relationship. It conducts an empirical examination among the 173 acute care trusts that are part of the English National Health System (NHS) to determine whether hospital with higher levels of innovation generating activity has higher organizational performance. It depicts that hospital organization with higher science- and practice-based innovativeness shows better patient mortality, patient satisfaction and service quality ratings. The finding illustrates a significant relationship of innovativeness and performance in clinical performance but the link between the two is less unambiguous in administrative performance.