Guidance

Air ambulance capital funding: application guidance

Updated 26 February 2019

Applies to England

Part 1: introduction

This guide explains what you need to think about when you complete and submit your application. We recommend you read it and contact us with any questions before you start. We anticipate that there will be a high level of interest in this round of funding; these guidance notes will assist you in preparing an eligible application.

How to apply

You will need to complete the application form, which can be downloaded from the GOV.UK webpage where you found this guidance.

Once you have downloaded the document, save it as a Word document and complete the application form in word format, using this guidance to help you. You will be able to change the sizes of the answer boxes as appropriate for your answer but please follow word limits where these are stated.

You will also need to send us a business case along with the application form (also saved as a Word document). Further details on the content of the business case is contained within the application form. There is no template provided for your business case. We will accept additional documents in an appendix to the business case (as long as these are sent along with the business case rather than separately).

Your application and accompanying business case must be submitted via email to: airambulancefunding@dhsc.gov.uk

Submitting your application

Your completed application and business case must be submitted by email by 11:59pm on 15 March 2019. We will not accept any applications after this. We encourage you to submit your application when it is complete, rather than waiting for the closing date.

Please title the subject of your email: Application & BC – (name of charity) – Air Ambulance Capital Funding February 2019

Please note: completing the application form and business case is the only way to apply for air ambulance capital funding.

How to contact us

If there’s anything you don’t understand or if you have any further questions about the guidance or completing the application form please get in touch with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) Air Ambulance Funding team by email at: airambulancefunding@dhsc.gov.uk. We will do our best to help.

Part 2: what we are looking for

In the Autumn 2018 Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced £10 million in capital funding for air ambulance services. DHSC is administering this fund. The recipients of the grant funding will be decided through a bidding process.

We want applicants to have the vision to make bids for a share of the funding that meet their own needs and desired outcomes. As such, the bidding process is relatively light-touch and non-prescriptive. There will however be a range of considerations we will make in order to assess successful bids. These are discussed throughout this document, in particular in the assessment criteria section.

The scheme is focused on maintaining and improving air ambulance services through capital funding, by investing in facilities and infrastructure. The scheme will not provide any new revenue funding or cover the costs of project administration or employing staff.

The air ambulance grant will primarily support projects that benefit people, by making an impact on patients in relation to their health outcomes or their experience. For example, projects which enable an increase in the number of patients who receive enhanced pre-hospital critical care (in the ‘golden hour’) would be likely to lead to improved patient outcomes as a result of receiving quicker or more appropriate medical care before arriving at the emergency department. Further examples of outcome metrics can be found later in this document.

Who can apply

The 18 air ambulance charities in England are eligible. In some circumstances, an air ambulance charity and an NHS organisation may make a joint bid (for example, a helipad is an asset which would be owned by the acute hospital trust where the helipad is based). However, in any circumstances requiring a joint bid, the primary sponsor for the bid must be the air ambulance charity.

If your organisation has previously benefited from other sources of government funding (for example, LIBOR funds) you may still apply. Any funding awarded previously will be considered during the assessment process. We will also consider bids which are topping up existing grants and aids from another government department as long as you can show that this money is all that is needed (that it won’t need topping up again) and you must be able to show how you can complete the project with this funding. You will also need to have good project management and governance procedures in hand to ensure agreed spend and timelines will be met.

How much you can apply for

We are looking for good projects that will offer clear and effective support to patients. We will consider bids from each applicant of up to £2 million. We have not set a lower limit as we want to ensure grants are distributed fairly and based on the needs of the organisation. Bids will also be accepted which reach the upper limit through the combination of several separate projects (for example, several pieces of major medical equipment, alongside an extension to office space for operational staff) but these items must collectively form only one bid with each component included in the same application form and business case (and there may only be one submission per applicant).

You should show us in your application why the amount of funding that you are seeking offers the best solution and represents good value for money. As charities, you must also make it clear why the requested sum of money cannot be gained through your usual fundraising processes. You will need to show that your proposal is the most cost-effective option for addressing the challenge, and alternative solutions and opportunity costs have been considered. Please also tell us about any additional support that you have received for your project, through match funding commitments or through some other means. If you have applied to, or plan to apply to, other funding sources to obtain support for this proposal, you will need to tell us the funding source(s), amount applied for and date you will be notified of success.

In your application form and accompanying business case, please ensure that you clearly break down your funding request. Your application should be supported by a detailed project plan explaining the activities and timing of your project, with a financial budget, broken down by financial year.

We expect to receive more good applications than can be funded. It is possible that we may choose to offer a grant to part fund a request if full funding is not possible (for example, £2 million towards a new aircraft which will cost £5 million). In this case, the rest of the funding would need to be in place to ensure delivery. All match funding must be evidenced at the point of application; you will need to show how you will fund this (for example, by showing that the remaining money is already in your bank account or that it can be taken from your reserves). A key consideration we will be making is whether your proposal can be delivered, and this will help us to evidence that.

You should show us in your application that your project will meet a substantial strategic need and how you will formally evaluate the impact of your project – how you will be able to know whether or not your project has made a difference in the key areas of patient impact and value for money. Further information on this can be found in the assessment criteria section later in this document.

How long we can fund your project for

We can fund projects that begin after April 2019. We can fund projects for up to 3 years, providing your project will end by the ‘spend-by date’ of 31 March 2022. Any funding from the scheme that remains unspent at the end of the project will either be retained by, or returned to DHSC.

Payments will be made in instalments in arrears and will require evidence of spend (such as invoices, receipts). If you are successful in your application, we will enter into a grant agreement with you. In this, you will need to show how you will prevent project slippage, and clearly set out the payment schedule for each financial year, including how you will report to us on spend against agreed milestones or key performance indicators. Any future year spending is indicative and subject to business planning.

We will also consider how developed your project proposal is; projects that are sufficiently developed with all necessary consents in place (for example, planning permission is in place, tender decisions have been made, procurement processes have begun) are more likely to be considered. However, we will not necessarily rule out projects based on their planning stage if the proposal is shown to be robust in other ways, for example by showing us that you are working towards these stages and have a clear timeline in place. Individual grant agreements will be made with each successful applicant, which will set out specific grant conditions.

What we cannot fund

There are a number of things we can’t fund, either because they are not in the spirit of the grants, or because of relevant legislation or tax rules. These include:

• repeat or regular projects that require a source of uncommitted funding
• investments
• running costs, including staffing or project administration
• staff training and education or any other revenue funded activity
• routine building or equipment maintenance or provision of basic equipment required to deliver the normal core business
• paying for ongoing costs of existing partnership activity
• organisational fundraising activities
• projects, activities or services that the state has a legal obligation to provide
• retrospective funding for projects that have already taken place (those that have been completed before April 2019)
• excessive contingency costs; management or professional fees

This is not an exhaustive list as we feel it is more useful to focus on what you are trying to achieve and how you are going about this, than to issue long lists of eligible and ineligible costs. If your project strongly addresses the needs of the criteria set out within this guidance, then your costs should be eligible.

DHSC adheres to the Cabinet Office Functional Standard in grant-making, which incorporates the 10 Minimum Grant Standards. This Standard seeks to promote effective grant-making and has been mutually agreed across government. Information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/grants-standards

Assessment criteria

We will use the following assessment criteria when considering your project:

• the difference that your project will make to patients
• the delivery of your project
• governance and value for money of your project
• outcomes and sustainability of your project

The difference that your project will make to patients

What are we looking for?

We are looking for projects that will support the aim of the grant: to make a positive impact on patients and to improve value for money of services.

What do you need to show us?

• a project that is developed from need, demonstrating research and/or consultation with beneficiaries, and how your organisation can tailor or enhance support to meet these needs

• evidence that you are complementing and not replicating an already existing provision. This may include an assessment of your existing assets, including the age of the assets and the usage (where appropriate)

Delivery of your project

What are we looking for?

That your project idea is well planned, meets the needs of the people you are supporting and is likely to be successful.

What do you need to show us?

• that your organisation has the adequate skills, experience and resources to deliver the project
• the skills that you have in your project management team
• that your organisation has a track record of providing the support within your project
• that you are aware of risks to successful project delivery and that you have plans on how to mitigate this

You will need to give us some further information on the application form about your specific project plans:

• how developed your building plans are
• whether you have planning permission
• that your capital project can be completed within a reasonable period of time

Governance and value for money

What are we looking for?

How you will manage the grant to ensure that it is spent in the way that has the best effect on the lives of the people you support.

What do you need to show us?

• that your organisation is in good financial health
• why the costs you are asking for are fair and reasonable
• that the project costs are robust and realistic
• that your proposal is the most cost-effective option for addressing the challenge, and alternative solutions and opportunity costs have been considered
• that you have good financial controls, monitoring and reporting processes
• the suitability of management structure/governance arrangements and reporting

Outcomes and sustainability

What are we looking for?

That you know how you will be able to show whether or not your project has made a significant difference to the people you are supporting, and how your work will have a lasting impact once the grant is expended.

What do you need to show us?

• the key outcomes that your project will achieve
• how you will measure the difference that your project will make
• to what extent are the outcomes and outputs proposed realistic and measurable
• your proposed evaluation arrangements
• to what extent we can have confidence that your project will have lasting impact, delivering changes that last beyond the funding period
• that your project is financially sustainable without the need for additional grant funding

You will need to provide specific outcome measures – to guide your thinking, here are some examples of potential metrics which cover the key criteria of patient impact and value for money:

• increase in missions flown (with reasons why – for example, because the grant means a capital project can go ahead years before it might otherwise happen)
• the ratio between the amount of grant and funds already raised towards the project (to what degree is this funding making the difference)
• increase in number of patients receiving enhanced pre-hospital critical care (in the ‘golden hour’)
• increase in number of hours of service availability
• the number of patients experiencing direct and rapid access to the emergency department and avoiding transport by land ambulance resources
• increase in number of staff who have reached a specific qualification or standard of skill (for example, pre-hospital emergency medicine doctors, critical care specialist paramedics) – through capital projects such as extensions to office space for operational staff
• the value of cost savings enabled through the award of the grant (for example, in terms of sustainability of services)
• the longevity of the asset/capital project funded by the grant
• the range of benefit derived through outreach to wider community

Examples of the type of project which may result in these outcomes include: modernisation of aircraft, improvements made to helipad, extension to operations office space, improved range of onboard medical equipment.

The bids which are likely to be most successful will meet a range of the above assessment criteria. In particular, we are looking for bids which consider outcomes relating to value for money and a positive impact on patients. We also need to see that you have a genuine need for the proposed project and that you will likely be able to deliver to the funding and timescales agreed to.

Part 3: checks we may carry out on your organisation and accounts

The assessment will take into account information supplied in the application form, and any additional publicly available information, set against the assessment criteria outlined in Part 2 above.

We may carry out a number of checks on the information you provide us. This is to ensure that the information is correct and that there are no significant risks identified.

These may include the following checks:

• on whether the financial information in your application form matches that held by your regulatory body (Companies House, Charity Commission, for example)
• that your governing documents (such as constitutions and memorandum and articles of association) are up to date, correct and properly signed
• that your accounts are accessible through regulatory bodies
• on any identified concerns regarding a person named as a contact or who has a position within your organisation
• that your organisational name and address on your bank statement are consistent with the details you’ve provided in any completed form, or the information that’s held elsewhere in the public domain
• that your bank statement shows that your account is being managed in line with your own financial procedures and our programme requirements
• that the signatories are valid and well informed about the project

We may ask you to send us more recent financial information than your published accounts (including your latest set of Financial Accounts and Business Plan). If we ask you to do this, you will need to send us this information within 2 working days.

Part 4: additional information

It is important that you (and your partners, where relevant) have appropriate policies and procedures to manage the delivery of the services and projects. These will include equal opportunities and health and safety policies, and procedures that will allow you and your partners to manage finances, staff and other aspects of the work.

Complaints

If you are not happy with the way we dealt with your application, please contact us and we will discuss this with you.

Please note that you can only complain if you believe we have not followed our published guidance when dealing with your application. You cannot appeal against the funding decision.

Part 5: what happens next?

Contacting you during the assessment period

We may contact you with queries about your submission, either by email or telephone, and will endeavour to allow 2 working days for answers to any questions. Contact is not an indication as to the likely success of your application.

The deadline for submitting applications is 15 March 2019.

Assessment of applications will take place between March and April 2019. We may ask you to provide additional documentation during this time.

Final decisions on successful and unsuccessful bids will be made and communicated to applicants in April 2019.

Grant agreements for successful applicants will be drawn up following this.