
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.

Inclusive Elective Care Recovery
These case studies present the key features and learning from local initiatives which championed inclusive approaches to elective care recovery.

Decision Making Blog #8: Infinity-shaped debate
I’m argumentative.

Decision Making Blog #7: Should we 'go with the gut'? Yes, but...
I’m not sure there’s a superlative strong enough to describe ‘T

Decision Making Blog #6: The most powerful question in decision making?
I’m a fan of Shane Parrish and his organisation Farnam Street (strapline: ‘Helping you master the best of

Decision Making Blog #5: Reaching disagreement
Two starting points:

Decision Making Blog #4: Embrace uncertainty - it's a badge of honour
Imagine this:

Decision Making Blog #3: The black hole of the status quo
Learning is one of the joys of teaching. And I’ve learnt a lot while helping people develop their decision making skills.

Decision Making Blog #2: Two under-appreciated sources of leadership power
Some forms of leaders’ power are obvious. Leaders hire and they fire.

Decision Making Blog #1: Better decision making: a neglected route to improvement?
There are two main routes for health and care services to improve the health of the populations they serve. The

What are the ethical challenges in addressing inequities?
Produced by Angie Hobbs - the world’s first Professor in the Public Understanding of Philosophy – this paper examines the ethical questions raised by our report outlining strategies for reducing inequity.

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.

Strategies to reduce inequalities in access to planned hospital procedures
UPDATE 10th August: Now including briefing note for Integrated Care Boards on legal duties in respect of reducing inequalities. This report guides ICBs through the process.

We saw them before they were famous: reflections on AphA’s away day
In June 1976, the Sex Pistols played Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall.

What do we know about the benefits of digital social care records?
The pace of change in the development and use of digital technology is astonishing. The use of such technology has been an essential element in the health and care services response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In many cases, the previously unthinkable became commonplace.

The Intellectual Forum: a source of fresh perspectives on decision making
The literature on decision making is like a disaster movie highlights reel. Barely has one calamity registered before another serious misstep takes its place. Case study after case study flashes past, each with its own lessons and warnings.

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.

Less noise and more light: using criteria-driven analysis to tackle inequalities
Reducing health inequality is a long-standing aim of health policy. Yet the gap between policy aim and population outcome has grown in recent years: on most measures health inequalities have got worse.