Welcome to the Midlands Analyst Network

Thank you for being part of our growing community! If you are an analyst who works in health & care or the wider public sector, then join the Midlands Analyst Network!

Launched in April 2020, this thriving community now connects over 1,400 members from a wide range of organisations from the Midlands and beyond. The Network provides a supportive space for analysts to share ideas, resources, and good practice, as well as to seek advice, spark debate, and develop skills together.

I love how the huddles have grown into a space beyond simply sharing ideas and work, to a regular opportunity for analysts to come together as a community. They frequently lead to insightful and previously unconsidered questions and debates and also serve as a fantastic welcoming opportunity for those dipping their toes into the world of analytics and improved decision making. Andi Orlowski, Director of the Health Economics Unit

Meet your Network lead: Rachel Caswell

Rachel is a Senior Healthcare Analyst at the Strategy Unit and the Lead for Training & Development. She's passionate about developing the Network and supporting analysts across the system to connect, learn, and lead through collaboration.

Fortnightly Huddles

At the heart of the Network are our fortnightly online Huddles, hosted on MS Teams (see link below). The Huddles cover a large range of topics and you are very welcome to join one at any time – for quick access to a Huddle, just follow the link below.  You don’t have to be a member of the Midlands Analyst Network to come to a Huddle but if you’d like to be kept up to date with all future Huddles and training opportunities then contact Rachel (rachel.caswell@nhs.net) and we’ll take it from there.

We try to keep them as informal but as informative as possible and welcome contributions from Network members as well from academia, subject specialists, national and occasionally international presenters.

If you have any queries about the Huddles, how to access them, if you want to find out what’s gone before, or you want to present then please contact Rachel.

Next Huddle: 6 August (11-12): Do we need more hospital beds?

With Lucy Morgan, Head of Analytics and Modelling (Strategy Unit)

In this talk Lucy Morgan will be introducing the app "Do we need more hospital beds?". The app illustrates the relationship between, admissions, length of stay (LoS), occupancy and the number of hospital beds required at the national level. Over the last few decades reduction in LoS has allowed for reduction in bed capacity despite growing admissions. However, there is a limit to the amount LoS can reduce. This is evident from the plateauing effect seen in the average LoS in recent years. Going forward, if admissions continue to grow bed capacity must also grow to maintain system performance, or if growing the hospital estate is not possible then we must look to reducing future admissions. The "Do we need more hospital beds?" app encourages the user to build intuition and test their assumptions by:

• Viewing how admissions, available beds, average length of stay and bed occupancy have changed over the past 30+ years (1994–2025).
• Illustrating how changes in admissions could affect future bed requirements (Beds Calculator).
• Illustrating many admissions could be supported by future growth in bed capacity (Admissions Calculator).

Who is the Huddle for?

Same Teams link as usual and if you don't have this - it's here!

Click here to join the meeting Hop in at 11 am!

Up and coming Huddles

• 20/08/26: Admissions thresholds with Steven Wyatt and Andrew Hood, Strategy Unit
• 03/09/26: Exploring workforce opportunities for analysts with Neil Morgan and Jon Adamson, MLCSU
• 17/09/26: Midlands Prevention Toolkit, with Su Xavier and Olivia Conroy