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.”
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.
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.
Learning about what works in urgent community response
The initial report from the national urgent community response (UCR) evaluation, along with an economic modelling tool to help service providers and systems understand the impact of UCR, is now available.
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.
The NHS as an anchor institution: addressing fuel poverty
The number of households in fuel poverty in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent (SSoT) is higher than the national average. As anchor institutions, NHS organisations can use their assets to influence the health and wellbeing of their local communities. The Strategy Unit was asked by the Midlands NHS Greening Board to evaluate a cross-sector initiative in SSoT to help alleviate fuel poverty using savings generated through solar panels on NHS buildings. The project is called Keep Warm, Keep Well.
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.
Infant-feeding problems during the pandemic
Emergency department attendances fell dramatically and systematically during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. This effect was almost universal, affecting people from all parts of society and for all health conditions. But in our recent paper we highlight one notable exception to this rule -presentations at Emergency Departments for infant-feeding problems increased during the pandemic.
Urgent Community Response – What Works?
The Strategy Unit, with our partners Ipsos, has been commissioned by NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSEI) to provide a long-term national evaluation of the Urgent Community Response programme rolled-out across England. The programme aims to shift resources to home and community-based services as part of the NHS commitment to providing the right care, to the right people, at the right time. And there are a range of outputs from the early work that provide learning for local systems as they develop their services.
Evaluation of Building the Right Support: Final Reports
Building the Right Support was a national plan to provide better support to people with a learning disability or autism.
‘To risk stratify or not risk stratify, that is the question’ (At least, it should be)
Risk stratification tools are ubiquitous in healthcare. The concept is simple and seductive.
Infant feeding problems, lockdown and attendance at Emergency Departments: what’s going on?
From our previous work, with Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation, we know that lockdown had a significant effect on attendance at Emergency Departments (ED). We also know that this effect was very unevenly distributed: some demographic groups stayed away far more than others.
The impact of social care on demand for urgent hospital care: have we reached a consensus?
The care home COVID crisis and the effects of longstanding staffing and funding shortages has meant that social care has featured heavily in the media over the last 12 months.
Decisions to admit patients are not solely determined by clinical risk
Whether or not to admit a patient is one of the most routine yet important decisions a doctor in an Emergency Department
Inequities in children and young people’s mental health services
Good mental health during early years and childhood has a great bearing on health throughout life.
Some positive news for integrating GP practices with hospital trusts
The drive for greater integration of health and care services has been the central theme of UK health policy for most of
Strategy Unit analysis published showing changes in use of emergency departments under lockdown
We know that patterns of access to healthcare have changed during the pandemic.
Equity and Cost Growth in Specialised Services
NHS specialised services provide care for people with complex or rare medical conditions.