13/05/2022Blog post Emergency care
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.
28/10/2021Blog post Primary, community and social care services
Securing the future of domiciliary care
The Strategy Unit is embarking on an exciting project with WM ADASS, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Care Services in the West Midlands to explore the challenges facing domiciliary care and the opportunities that exist to transform and improve the service.
15/09/2021Blog post Comparative Analysis | Emergency care | Problem Structuring
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.
09/09/2021Blog post
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
06/08/2021Blog post Comparative Analysis | Elective care | Emergency care
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
01/07/2021Blog post Comparative Analysis | Emergency care | Problem Structuring
Emergency Department attendances reach new high – August may bring new challenges
Earlier this year, the Str
11/06/2021Blog post
Learning the lessons of Long Covid in real time
Round table event, 12 July
28/01/2021Blog post Complex Modelling | Emergency care | Inequalities
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.
30/10/2020Blog post Comparative Analysis | End of life
Why are deaths set to rise?
In our recent analysis of healthcare use in the last 2 years of life, we point out an important change that’s taking place to life and death in the UK.
19/10/2020Blog post
Making sense of evidence
It's time to celebrate World Evidence-Based Healthcare (EBHC) Day. In a world dominated by COVID-19 and the associated infodemic, this day arguably has more resonance. Closer to home, EBHC Day also coincides with our Insight 2020 festival and the launch of the Midlands Decision Support network. What better opportunity to ask, 'what does evidence-informed decision making actually mean'?
16/10/2020Blog post Futures thinking | Policy
The bigger picture
Today, the Health Foundation launched the REAL Centre (Research and Economic Analysis for the Long term), an incredibly important initiative to imp
24/07/2020Blog post
Bringing NHS analytics into the 21st Century
A marriage usually needs (at least): a matchmaker, two entities, a (little) money, a proposal and a home.
09/12/2019Blog post Better use of analysis | Futures thinking | Problem Structuring
Measuring what matters in systems – A call for person-centred intelligence
The Strategy Unit and Ipsos MORI launch guide to implementing Person-Centred Intelligence.
29/04/2019Blog post
Have cuts to public spending on social care for older people led to more emergency hospital admissions?
Cuts to council social care budgets are often cited as a cause of pressure on NHS urgent and emergency care services. Much of the evidence supporting this link, however, is anecdotal. We set out to try and quantify the effect of cuts to social care on older people’s use of emergency healthcare services, and our research has just been published in BMJ Open.
07/12/2018Blog post
Innovation and evaluation – a proposition for change, an offer of support
Health and care services in England are labouring under a chronic state of stress – where for many organisations, ‘just about coping’ has become the new normal.
28/09/2018Blog post
New Perspectives on the Perennial Problem of Urgent Care
Waiting times in A&E are never far from the headlines. It threatens to become the defining healthcare performance issue of our time, much lik
Blog post
Integrating health and care services - what works? It’s complicated…
Coinciding nicely with the NHS 70th Birthday celebrations and the parallel discussions of ‘where next and how to do it better’ for the NHS, last we
19/03/2018Blog post
What works for primary care led integration?
We recently shared highlights from our realist synthesis on primary care-led integrated models, at the Health Policy and Planning Network workshop. Take a look at our presentation for a flavour of our findings ahead of publication later in the summer.
29/09/2017Blog post
A&E waiting times are longer – but that’s not all bad news
The country’s major accident and emergency (A&E) departments are struggling more than ever before to see patients within the government target of four hours – but that is not all bad news.
Blog post Comparative Analysis | Mental health
Making the Case for integrating mental and physical health care
The Strategy Unit was commissioned by NHS England to provide tailored reports to each of the Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships in England.