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Our work

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carer holding had with elderly person in wheelchair
Blog post 24/09/2025

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’.

Hospital building
News 08/04/2025

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.

Report 13/12/2024

‘To risk stratify or not risk stratify, that is the question’ (At least, it should be)

Risk stratification tools are ubiquitous in healthcare. The concept is simple and seductive.

13/05/2024

Contracting for health outcomes: from concept through theory to implementation

In this new report, jointly authored with colleagues from the University of York and The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, we set out in detail how an outcomes-based contract for elective knee replacements might be constructed, and the potential implications for commissioners, providers, and policy-makers.

ICS intelligence functions graph
Report 21/03/2023

ICS intelligence functions – a toolkit to support the implementation of NHSE guidance

In 2020, NHSE

graphic showing inequality being erased with eraser
Report 04/11/2022

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.

Long read 27/09/2022

Helping ICSs to reduce inequalities in access to planned care

Are there inequalities in access to planned care? If so, what are they? Which groups ‘gain’ and which groups suffer? And what could be done to address any inequalities? In pursuing their objective of reducing inequalities, what could Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) do? What strategies and approaches are likely to be successful?

Blog post 08/06/2022

‘Might’ is right

A good idea can be ruined by over-selling.

Report 09/05/2022

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.

News 28/04/2022

Appointing an ICS ‘Chief Analyst’

The Strategy Unit has, over the last ten years, developed a way of working that has allowed us to become recognised as a leading analytical organisation in the NHS.

Blog post 11/03/2022

Treating people on waiting lists: who decides what is fair?

Waiting lists for elective care are in the news. The national plan has been issued, with the expectation that lists will continue to rise for some years - and that long waiting will not disappear anytime soon. Addressing this ‘backlog’ will remain a fundamental challenge for some time to come.

Blog post 03/02/2022

Decision makers can make much better use of analysis

Part of the Strategy Unit mission is to improve the use of analysis in decision making. Current use is, to employ a euphemism, variable.

Report 28/10/2021

Advancing the analytical capability of the NHS and its ICS partners

The Strategy Unit were asked by the Strategy and Development Team in the Directorate of the Chief Data and Analytics Officer, NHSE/I, to make recommendations for advancing analytical capability across the health and care workforce.

Report 15/10/2021

Strategy Unit devises a new method for classifying outpatient appointments

The number of outpatient attendances in England is now approaching 100 million each year.

Blog post 04/12/2020

A learning NHS and ‘black box’ analysis aren’t compatible

Data analysis presents a limitless opportunity to improve decision making within the NHS.

Report 14/10/2020

Health service use in the last two years of life

Health and care services get just one opportunity to support people at the end of their life. When this support is compassionate and appropriate, unnecessary suffering can be avoided and grieving can be eased. When this is not the case, harm and distress can result. The difference in these experiences can be profound.

Blog post 13/08/2018

Part of the solution or part of the problem? Management Consultants and the NHS

I was quoted in a recent Guardian newspaper article which described a London Clinical Commissioning Group’s wasteful use of external

Report 25/07/2017

Scoping the Strategic Analytical Requirements for Clinical Neurosciences in England

Neurosciences encompasses a large number of services and interventions, delivered to individuals with a wide range of conditions by numerous provid

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