Emergency Departments worked better during the strikes. But why?
New research published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine explores why emergency departments worked better during strikes.
The hidden challenge at the heart of the 10-year plan
A new tool exploring why hospital bed pressure is increasing and what this could mean for future NHS capacity planning.
A new tool to help systems to deliver the left shift
Our new tool to help systems explore opportunities to reduce hospital care.
Neighbourhoods and hospital activity: oh yes it can, oh no it can’t?
Simple, intuitive ideas don’t draw critical attention. They stroll about the policy world, untested and unscathed.
Improving perioperative flow: using simulation to understand elective care pathways
Why are operations still being cancelled on the day of surgery, despite long waiting lists and high demand? The answer often lies not in a single point of failure, but in how the perioperative pathway functions as a whole.
Complex problems and Multi-Disciplinary Teams
Many moons ago, I was fortunate enough to observe a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) in Dudley.
Discharge before noon
Can data on discharge times help us to improve hospital flow?
Why NHS models should be built to be reused
Our Head of Simulation, Dr Lucy Morgan, recently appeared on the new podcast Inside the Algorithm, hosted by Cambridg
Neighbourhood health should not be judged (solely) by its ability to reduce hospital activity
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy arrived at NASA headquarters for a progress update on the planned trip to the moon.
Diagnosing the problems of non-diagnosis
Some descriptions of healthcare seem to be taken straight from the film Minority Report.
Continuity in primary care: the safest bet we aren’t able to make?
In this long-read, which first appeared in the HSJ, Fraser Battye asks whether focusing on continuity might also improve access to primary care
What explains the recent growth in hospital activity?
In this long read, Fraser Battye describes our analysis of what has driven the growth in hospital activity.
Planning for rising renal demand: simulating capacity across the care system
Demand for kidney replacement therapy is rising, and current capacity will not be sufficient over the next decade. This work uses simulation modelling to help systems understand future pressures and test potential responses.
Death (and taxes?)
Hospices are fundamental to end of life care, and the broader shift ‘from hospital to community’.
Beating the backlog: Meeting the waiting list challenge
The NHS waiting list in England must halve to reach waiting time targets.
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.
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.
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’.
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.
Things can only get better (?)
Introducing a new online tool to help local health and care service planners think differently about healthy ageing.