Want to ease pressure in urgent care? Simply cut community services!?!
What should decision makers do with analysis that challenges deeply held assumptions? In this blog, Fraser Battye reflects on a surprising recent finding about community services.
Ghosted by an old friend
“…personal contact was a vital element in general practice from the beginning. By 1959 50% of people in England regarded their GP as a personal friend.”
Part-time GPs and the decline in continuity of care: a cause or a symptom?
In our recent paper we explore why levels of care continuity have been declining and what might be done to turn things around.
Two sides of the same coin
Hospital demand arising from GPs not seeing patients, is eating into the resources that they would use to manage down the elective backlog. In turn, this is creating more demand for GPs.
Are GP consultation rates rising or falling? Who or what should we believe?
If the "data suggests" GP appointments are substantially higher than pre-pandemic, then what is behind patients reporting recieving fewer appointments?
GP services: new analysis and fresh insights
In our latest analysis for the Midlands Decision Support Network (MDSN), we explore the long standing problem of access to GP practice consultations we consider the implications, and explore potential solutions.
A collaborative partnership with the Health Foundation
The Strategy Unit is collaborating with the Health Foundation to help address key health and social care issues by combining our expertise in data analysis.
Leadership training and support for organisational development: an offer from the Strategy Unit
The Strategy Unit has long been known for the quality of its analytical work, and the clear, critical thi
Review of Ophthalmic Managed Clinical Networks (MCNs) in Staffordshire and Shropshire
The aim of the MCNs is to bring together primary care optometrists with local ophthalmologists within a geographical area. This is a review Strategy Unit were commissioned by NHS England to work with a medical retina MCN in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and a glaucoma MCN in Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent, to review their work so far and look at the opportunities the networks present.
Exploring the Edge of Tomorrow, Today
Exploring the critical building blocks for a resilient social care system in 2035 with the West Midlands Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (WM-ADASS).
Diagnosing harms?
All medicines are poisons. Everything that cures could kill if administered in the wrong doses, to the wrong people, at the wrong times, in the wrong ways.
How is growth in diagnostic testing affecting the hospital system?
Diagnostic services, such as medical imaging, endoscopy, and pathology, have grown substantially in recent years and at a faster rate than most other healthcare services. Increased diagnostic testing brings benefits to patients, but rapid growth of this service area within a complex, adaptive system such as the NHS is likely to have had unintended consequences. Midlands ICBs wanted to understand the impact of diagnostic growth on hospital services.
Population health implications of the Covid-19 pandemic
Our new report for The Midlands Decision Support Network (MDSN) presents findings of the effects of the care disruption, from the Covid-19 pandemic, on population health. The in-depth analysis identifies which patients and health conditions should be the focus of future efforts in reducing inequalities caused by the pandemic.
Analysts, we need to talk about…….
The future looks incredibly promising for ana
What are the ethical challenges in addressing inequities?
Produced by Angie Hobbs - the world’s first Professor in the Public Understanding of Philosophy – this paper examines the ethical questions raised by our report outlining strategies for reducing inequity.
Helping ICSs to reduce inequalities in access to planned care
Are there inequalities in access to planned care? If so, what are they? Which groups ‘gain’ and which groups suffer? And what could be done to address any inequalities? In pursuing their objective of reducing inequalities, what could Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) do? What strategies and approaches are likely to be successful?
What matters when waiting? – involving the public in NHS waiting list prioritisation
As the NHS emerged out of the pandemic, it was confronted with the challenge of not only recovery of unprecedented waiting lists, but with inequalities which required attention. NHS leaders challenged providers to restore inclusively and at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, we have developed a way of doing just that, whilst simultaneously reducing waiting times for all.
What was the question again?
We hear a lot about what’s stopping the NHS making the most of its army of talented analysts. Some say we just need more data, or data of better quality. Others point to deficiencies in our infrastructure, IT kit or the software we use. But I’m not so sure. For me the biggest shortfall is in good questions that we can feasibly address.
Inequalities in access to healthcare - what’s our next move?
Our research, published in the Lancet Regional Health Europe, highlights substantial inequities in access to elective hip replacement surgery. We found no evidence that these inequities reduced between 2006 and 2016.