Our Project
SPROCKET is a research and innovation hub aiming to transform the delivery of services for children and young people with complex health needs and for those who care for them at key transition points.
What is a Sprocket?
A sprocket is a toothed wheel that works with a chain to transfer motion efficiently. The SPROCKET hub aims to keep multiple services (health, care, education) moving together, reducing gaps, delays, and duplicated effort for children with complex needs.
Children and young people with complex health needs rely on coordinated support across healthcare, education, social care, housing and transport. Yet the systems designed to support them often operate in silos. At critical moments of transition -such as starting school or leaving hospital- families frequently experience delays, confusion, duplication, and gaps in care. These disruptions can lead to:
- Increased family stress and financial strain
- Worsening health or developmental outcomes
- Escalating costs to public services
- Deepening inequalities for families already facing disadvantage
Those living in poverty, temporary accommodation, or with limited English proficiency face even greater barriers. Despite many well-intentioned policies and local initiatives, there remains no coordinated, system-wide approach to redesigning these transitions.
SPROCKET was created to change this.
What is SPROCKET doing?
Improving the experiences of underserved children, young people and their families at transition points and through systems engineering and co-designed innovations.
The SPROCKET team
Multidisciplinary expertise in systems engineering, health research, data linkage, psychology, health economics, disability innovation, lived experience, and health, care and education delivery
Co-produced animations on parents' lived experience
We worked with parents of children and young people with complex health needs to design the content of three animations exploring different aspects of their lived experience.
During an 18-month funded development phase, we co-created a research hub that has children, young people and families at its heart and that can investigate all the relevant services -from GP consultations and specialist healthcare to social care and education- ready to build a seamless, efficient, and less burdensome experience for children and their families.
We decided to focus on two key, but challenging, transitions where we found that children’s needs can go unmet because the systems are stressed and services are needed across different sectors:
- School: Starting a first school placement and moving from primary to secondary school
- Hospital to community: When a child leaves hospital with need for ongoing support in the community, including after initial diagnosis.
SPROCKET is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) in partnership with UK Research and Innovation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) (Project ID: NIHR156988).
The views expressed are those of the researchers and not necessarily those of the NIHR, the Department of Health and Social Care or the EPSRC.
Stay in touch
Subscribe to our biannual newsletter by emailing us at:
Sprocket Project
Click to email. sprocket@ucl.ac.uk