Frequently asked questions

1. You have defined the challenge or issue in your setting;
2. You have ideated solutions and come up with a play-based solution (i.e., your innovation) which will improve children and young people’s experiences in healthcare;
3. You have delivered, tested and evaluated your innovation and gathered some evidence to demonstrate its impact – We would like you to be in this stage of this innovation process when applying for this award.

No! We are looking for innovations which have been developed within your setting. All of the shortlisting and judging will consider how innovative and impactful your project is within the context of your own setting.

If it has been delivered in the same/similar way in another setting, we’d still love to receive your application and will not hold you back in terms of the scores you receive from the judges.

You/your team can apply directly to this award. You do not need to be nominated (unlike Starlight’s other Health Play Awards such as ‘Health Play Specialist of the Year’). If you can think of an individual or team who you would have wanted to nominate, we would encourage you to encourage them to apply directly themselves!

No. Applications will be open to any individual or team of healthcare professionals, including but not limited to health play professionals. If you have delivered a health play innovation which has not involved health play professionals, you can still apply.

Each healthcare setting can submit one or more applications. This is because we recognise there might be multiple innovations being developing in one setting, across different teams or departments, which can each form its own application.

Yes. To apply, your innovation must have been delivered to some extent in the past 6 years (2020-2026 inclusive). This means delivery could have finished or may still be continuing. In the application form, you will be asked to tell us the period of time when the innovation was delivered, or if it is still continuing. 

Yes. This is for us to understand how innovation is being funded, supported and the context in which it happens. It will help us identify how we can improve access to funds and support in this area. It may be that your innovation wasn't funded, or you used funds from an internal budget, or you could have received funding from a hospital charity/trust/health board or an external funder. If this is you, we would love to hear from you in your application about the funding and support you received to do this work.

Applications open on Tuesday 4 November 2025. Applications will close on Friday 6 February 2026 at 5pm. 

If you win or come runner-up, we would like to engage with you and your setting to celebrate your innovation on the website, social media, or for other media or press opportunities. Therefore we would like to know who is the best person to contact for these comms/media opportunities if you win.

• If you have a quick question or want to schedule a meeting with us, we’re very happy to speak to you – please email [email protected]
• We have put together an example completed application here – this will be helpful if you‘d like to see the questions on the application form before you start applying, or if you’d like to see an example of how to answer the questions.
• We held a webinar where we spoke in detail about this award. A recording of the webinar is available on this page.

Yes. If you would prefer to submit a video application instead of a written application, please contact [email protected] and we will provide you with guidance on how to do this, such as what questions you need to answer in your video and how to send us your video.

You can submit any of the following types of evidence/data:

• Testimonials or quotes from children, young people or families who benefitted from the innovation
• Testimonials or quotes from other healthcare professionals who recognised the impact of the innovation on children and young people and/or the wider setting
• Qualitative research data such as observation data, interview data or any other qualitative data
• Quantitative research data such as feedback/survey data, outcomes data or any other quantitative data
• Reports/articles/outputs you may have published or presented

We recognise that different teams will have varying levels of time, resources and experience to collect data which demonstrates the impact of an innovation. Therefore, the quantity of evidence you provide will not be a key factor when judges score each application. Instead it is more about quality and how the evidence demonstrates the extent of the impact of the innovation – for more details, please see our judging criteria below. Whether you are submitting quotes, testimonials, numerical statistics/figures or reports/outputs, a small handful of any type of evidence will be adequate.   

Please note you don’t need to provide as much data as we have provided in the example completed application. This is just to give you an idea of what you could provide.

You must have suitable permissions and consent to share any evidence and data with us as part of your application. This means that you have asked any children, young people, families or health professionals who were involved in the data collection, that they are happy for you to share their data/quotes/feedback with Starlight for the purposes of this application.

As good practice, please anonymise names in any evidence and data you provide, as this makes the data sharing is safer.

We encourage you to add any photos or videos which demonstrate your innovation in action and the impact of your work. The application form will allow you to upload up to 5 photos or videos. If you have more than 5 photos or videos to upload, please email [email protected] with the remaining files and we will add them to your application. If your files are too large to be emailed, please use https://wetransfer.com/ using the email [email protected].

You must have suitable permissions and consent to share any photos and videos with us as part of this application. This means that you have asked any children, young people, families or health professionals who were involved in the data collection, that they are happy for you to share their photos/videos with Starlight for the purposes of this application.

There will be a panel of four judges, made up of Starlight staff and trustees, and representatives from the health play and innovation sectors. Judges will read and score the shortlisted applications individually before coming together as a panel to provide final scores and decide on the winner and runners-up. 

Judges will read and score the shortlisted applications individually before coming together as a panel to provide final scores and decide on the winner and runners-up. The scoring will be completed by giving a score of 1 to 5 for each of the judging criteria below:  

To what extent is the innovation: 

• … innovative in its use of play to deliver healthcare? 
• … evidencing its impact on improving children’s healthcare experiences? 
• … inspirational to others? 
• … scalable?
• … aligned with Starlight’s values?  

A score of 1 to 5 will mean the following:  

• 1 – no evidence or extremely limited evidence provided
• 2 – limited evidence provided
• 3 – average evidence provided
• 4 – strong evidence with good examples provided
• 5 – outstanding evidence and examples provided

Judges will aim to select one winner and two runners-up. They may choose more if the quality of applications is very high. Starlight will contact the winner and runners-up via email in March 2026 to congratulate them and begin to arrange the celebration ceremony (see below).

The winner and runners-up will receive a trophy and certificate. Starlight will visit the winner and runners-up at their settings to hold celebration ceremonies. We would welcome any family/friends, colleagues and senior members of the setting/trust to attend these ceremonies and celebrate the winner and runners-up with us!    

Starlight will publish outputs and reports to share knowledge and raise awareness of health play innovations.