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
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’.
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
“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.
‘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.
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.
Need, demand, and supply of GP services: an old lens on an ever-present problem
About 20 years ago, I attended a lecture given by Andrew Stevens, a rather formidable and austere Professor of Public Health at the Un
Part-time GPs and the decline in continuity of care: a cause or a symptom?
In our recent paper we explore why levels of care continuity have been declining and what might be done to turn things around.
Two sides of the same coin
Hospital demand arising from GPs not seeing patients, is eating into the resources that they would use to manage down the elective backlog. In turn, this is creating more demand for GPs.
Are GP consultation rates rising or falling? Who or what should we believe?
If the "data suggests" GP appointments are substantially higher than pre-pandemic, then what is behind patients reporting recieving fewer appointments?
GP services: new analysis and fresh insights
In our latest analysis for the Midlands Decision Support Network (MDSN), we explore the long standing problem of access to GP practice consultations we consider the implications, and explore potential solutions.
MDSN: GP practice productivity, efficiency, and continuity of care
GP Practice productivity, efficiency, and continuity of care
MDSN: The gap between need and supply of GP practice consultations
The gap between need and supply of GP practice consultations
MDSN: Long-term trends in GP practice Consultation Rates
GP practice consultations are, by some distance, the most common interaction between the NHS and the population it serves.
A Picture of End-of-Life Care in England
Working with Macmillan our analysis investigates who is more likely to experience poor outcomes associated with shortcomings in end-of-life care? Are there particular areas in England where those at end-of-life face significant challenges and how might the supply of services in an area be influencing these?
A collaborative partnership with the Health Foundation
The Strategy Unit is collaborating with the Health Foundation to help address key health and social care issues by combining our expertise in data analysis.
Review of Ophthalmic Managed Clinical Networks (MCNs) in Staffordshire and Shropshire
The aim of the MCNs is to bring together primary care optometrists with local ophthalmologists within a geographical area. This is a review Strategy Unit were commissioned by NHS England to work with a medical retina MCN in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and a glaucoma MCN in Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent, to review their work so far and look at the opportunities the networks present.
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.
How is growth in diagnostic testing affecting the hospital system?
Diagnostic services, such as medical imaging, endoscopy, and pathology, have grown substantially in recent years and at a faster rate than most other healthcare services. Increased diagnostic testing brings benefits to patients, but rapid growth of this service area within a complex, adaptive system such as the NHS is likely to have had unintended consequences. Midlands ICBs wanted to understand the impact of diagnostic growth on hospital services.