Care Services Minister, Ivan Lewis announced the opening of the second round of the Department of Health (DH) Social Enterprise Investment Fund today. He also announced that this year, it would include a new element, the 'Innovation for Life Challenge Fund', developed in collaboration with the Social Enterprise Coalition. The Innovation for Life Challenge Fund will encourage Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) and their partners to find collaborative solutions to health and social care needs through social enterprise

Speaking at The Office of the Third Sector (OTS) Good Deals conference, the Minister announced that SHAs would be invited to bid for up to £100k revenue each (from the existing Social Enterprise Fund) to support the commissioning of innovative cross-sector social enterprise solutions. Funding from the new 'Innovation for life Challenge Fund' for 2008/9 could be used to support local boroughs to develop social enterprise solutions to health and well-being issues and to provide cross-sector solutions to local problems, for instance the health and housing sectors working together.

Care Services Minister Ivan Lewis said: "The Innovation for Life Challenge Fund is testimony to our confidence in social enterprise as part of the solution to commissioning world class health and social care services.

"We hope that this will challenge commissioners to find solutions through social enterprises to longstanding problems that have the potential to lead to real social change and improvement in health and well being.

"Increasingly, we are seeing social enterprises delivering the innovative and personalised services that people rightly expect. That is why we have set up this new scheme as part of the £100 million Social Enterprise Investment Fund."

Local partners, under the stewardship of the SHAs would be expected to provide further funding equivalent to 25 per cent of their bid to the Innovation for Life Challenge Fund.

Round two of the SEIF is now open to bidders with £11m capital and £6m revenue funding available to support successful applicants. The Social Enterprise Investment Fund supports the development of social enterprises in health and social care such as women's refuges, migraine clinics and exercise programmes for the elderly, which take account of and address the needs of a wide range of patients and services users, particularly the most vulnerable and excluded.

Jonathan Bland, chief executive of the Social Enterprise Coalition, said: "We believe in a market for commissioning services that is not only about the lowest bidder but also allows factors such as quality and social benefit to be considered.

"We developed this initiative in partnership with the Department of Health because the added value social enterprises offer is far too regularly ignored within the procurement process.

"We are delighted that this fund will incentivise commissioners to think differently when tackling entrenched issues within health and social care."

Social enterprises are businesses, which reinvest their profits back into the organisation or into the local community, promoting independence, well-being and social inclusion and helping to improve people's quality of life.

More Kent news here. Kent news updates free to your mailbox with the Kent Review.