About us
Guided by the Unit’s principle of “Better evidence, better decisions, better outcomes”, we combine analytical rigour with practical insight and rapid methods, helping you understand what works, for whom, and why – to improve services, reduce inequalities and deliver better outcomes.
The Strategy Unit Evaluation Team is a leading evaluation partner to the NHS and the wider health and care sector, delivering independent, high-quality evaluation that inform real-world decisions. We deliver a range of evaluations to meet our clients’ needs, from rapid analyses to multi-year complex programmes, drawing on our team of qualitative and quantitative experts – and specialising in mixed-method approaches.
As part of the NHS, we work without a profit motive, reinvesting our expertise to support the system and share learning widely. We partner with community engagement experts to ensure meaningful involvement from citizens – helping to generate insights that are relevant, equitable and actionable.
Why work with us
We provide support at every stage of your evaluation journey, from helping make your work evaluable by design to generating robust evidence of impact.
We are committed to inclusive, high-quality evaluation that reflects the populations services are designed to support. Working with us means:
- Evaluation designed for action – we focus on producing insights you can use, quickly and confidently
- Deep NHS insight and data access – we understand the system and work securely with national and local datasets
- Rigour at pace – we balance methodological strength with the realities of delivery timelines
- Open and transparent approaches – we share methods, code, and learning to maximise impact across the system
- Inclusive by design – we work to remove barriers to participation and ensure diverse voices shape evaluation
- Quality outputs – we tailor our outputs to your audience, whether that’s senior leaders, front-line healthcare professionals, or people with lived experience.
We work with clients across health and care, the wider public sector, and charities, including:
- NHS England and regional teams
- Integrated Care Boards
- Hospital trusts and provider organisations
- Regulators
- National and local charities including Macmillan and Diabetes UK.
What we offer
We use a mix of qualitative, quantitative and evidence review approaches. We triangulate across our findings where possible to build a complete picture of how a programme works.
Our access to national and local health and care datasets such as Secondary Uses Service (SUS) and the Community Services Dataset (CSDS), combined with advanced data linkage enables us to track outcomes across services and over time.
We also build your internal capability through logic model training workshops and practical tools helping teams design and evaluate their own interventions.
Meet the team
Our multidisciplinary team brings expertise from health, social care, policy, and research, offering rich and diverse perspectives – specialising in rapid approaches.
We work collaboratively across the Strategy Unit to draw on a wide range of analytical and subject-matter expertise - ensuring our work is both robust and grounded in practice. We also work in partnership with organisations with specialist skills in community engagement and research, such as Ipsos and People Street. Through collaboration, we bring together the right expertise to meet project need.
Our work
We deliver evaluations ranging from small pilot studies to complex, multi-year programmes. If you would like to know more about our work, contact our Head of Evaluation, Paul Mason (paul.mason14@nhs.net).
Our current evaluations
- ‘Deep Dives’ into neighbourhood health delivery as part of the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme
- Support to the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme to embed the foundations for impact evaluation
- A process evaluation to develop minimum standards of experience for patients and carers on NHS elective care waiting lists
- A process evaluation of behavioural interventions to support medicines adherence in community pharmacy
- A mixed-methods evaluation testing a combined health check for people with autism, learning disability, and/or severe mental illness
- An impact evaluation of a respiratory virtual ward
- Evaluating a leadership programme aiming to improve palliative and end of life care within systems across the UK
- Evaluating a large national charity’s programme designed to support young people living with Type 1 Diabetes
- Evaluating interventions carried out by local mental health services to increase patient adherence to therapy.
Published Evaluations
Blogs from the Evaluation Team
GoResources and insights
We are committed to building evaluation expertise in the NHS and our wider partners. To support this, we have published a free, interactive evaluation guide to help you understand how to commission, design and delivery evaluation.
Our team of experts regularly post blogs, presentations and short reads about our evaluation experience, designed to keep you updated on the latest insights.
Contact us
If you would like a formal (or informal) discussion about your evaluation needs, please contact our Evaluation Lead, Paul Mason: paul.mason14@nhs.net