10-Year Productivity Forecast for the English NHS: An Expert Elicitation Study
Expert elicitation exercise commissioned by and in collaboration with the Health Foundation has produced forecasts of NHS productivity rates over the next 10 years.
The Strategy Unit contribution to neighbourhood health
Our role in supporting the national effort to turn the vision of neighbourhood health into action by providing evidence, analysis and insight.
Cancer and comorbidities: An Evidence Review of Diagnosis, Treatment, and Experience
An evidence review on the challenges and disparities faced by individuals living with cancer alongside other long-term conditions.
A fairer funding future for general practice: lessons from Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB
Our evaluation of the Health Equity Payment (HEP) scheme in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland highlights how flexible, needs-based GP funding can support more equitable care.
Heart Failure Targeted Funding Programme 2023/24 Evaluation
The Heart Failure Targeted Funding Programme was an NHS England initiative to improve access to heart failure specialists in the commu
Making sense of failure demand in the NHS
I must be an unpleasant creature to share a room with. I snore. I smell. And I’m seemingly addicted to my way of doing things.
Shifting care ‘from hospital to community’: where to start?
What are the opportunities to shift activity from hospital to community? Our analysis provides an evidence-based place to start.
The decline in care continuity is not inevitable
Relational continuity of care, the extent to which patients have an ongoing relationship with a specific clinician in their GP practice, is perhaps
Expectations: The hidden driver of healthcare demand
How well do we understand changing expectations and implications for the NHS?
A missing element in ‘shifting care’
Our Director, Peter Spilsbury, outlines the scale of the task when it comes to making ‘the shift from hospital to community’.
Hydration, UTIs and older people: learning from NHS pilots about how to improve care
Our evaluation of hydration-focused interventions for older people found promising signs of impact and highlighted the practical and systemic challenges of delivering and sustaining change.
Strategy Unit demand model wins prestigious Florence Nightingale Award
Our open-source demand model, developed in collaboration with the New Hospital Programme, has been named the 2025 winner of the Florence Nightingale Award for Excellence in Health and Care Analytics.
Virtual wards: Patient and unpaid carer experiences of ‘hospital at home’ care
Our evaluation of patient and carer experiences of virtual wards found widespread benefits and highlights areas for improvements parti
Mending smarter, not harder: Changing fracture care for children
The report demonstrates there is significant variation between trusts in England in how paediatric fractures are managed. Widespread adoption of less interventional approaches to paediatric fracture management could result in significant savings in hospital activity, particularly reduced follow-up appointments for uncomplicated fractures.
Scoping a Health Needs Assessment for Adults on Probation in England
This scoping report explores the health inequalities experienced by people on probation and the limited data on their health needs and engagement with health services. It sets out recommendations for commissioning and delivering a national health needs assessment to address that data gap and support local health needs assessments for the probation population.
Are there any non-technical ‘rules of thumb’ for assessing the quality of analysis?
The report below is from a short project that explored a simple set of questions:
“Champion, challenge, collaborate.”
Being commissioned by the Mayor of London to produce independent reviews of proposals for major service change, affecting Londoners, perfectly aligns with our commitment to help the health and care system make better decisions and ultimately achieve benefits for population health and wellbeing.
Things can only get better (?)
Introducing a new online tool to help local health and care service planners think differently about healthy ageing.
Transforming Hospital Planning with an Open-Source Demand and Capacity Model
We are proud to announce the open-sourcing of a demand and capacity model, developed with the New Hospitals Programme, to transform NHS hospital planning with transparency, collaboration, and efficiency.
Our role in the New Hospital Programme
Learn how the Strategy Unit’s innovative model is transforming hospital planning by providing a consistent, data-driven approach to forecast future demand and evidence-based decision making.