The Health Foundation commissioned Cordis Bright and Innovation Unit to conduct a process evaluation of its Exploring Social Franchising Programme.

Between 2017 and 2021 the Health Foundation supported four health innovators - PROMPT, PINCER, Pathway and IRISi - to explore how the principles of social franchising would affect their attempts to scale within the NHS.

As part of the programme, support to the four innovators took the form of direct funding from the Health Foundation and social franchising consultancy expertise from Spring Impact.

The evaluation focussed on the potential of social franchising as a mechanism for replication, scale and spread in the NHS. The evaluation addressed the following main research question:

“Does social franchising and licensing work as a mechanism to promote the replication of improvement projects?”

The evaluation approach was collaborative, exploratory and developmental. It aimed to mirror the key stages of the Exploring Social Franchising Programme: design, systemise, validation and launch.