
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.

‘Internal Consultancy’: INSIGHTS from evidence and experience
In this blog, our Head of Policy, Fraser Battye, shares his reflections on a recent ‘SU INSIGHTS’ event on the ‘Internal Consultancy’

Are ‘Internal Consultancies’ a good option for the NHS?
Ahead of a SU INSIGHTS event on the topic, Fraser Battye, our Head of Policy suggests ways the NHS could make better use of consultancy support.

From ‘right drift’ to ‘left shift’?
Our Head of Policy, Fraser Battye, looks at the challenges facing the intention to shift care ‘from hospital to community’. He suggests that we have missed a critical part of the explanation for why this ‘left shift’ hasn’t taken place following previous initiatives.

Our collective responsibility to share evaluation findings
The Strategy Unit is increasingly being commissioned to undertake evaluations on the pre

A Guide to Effective Evaluation: Design, Principles and Practice
Evaluation is key to making better decisions in health and care– understanding what works, for whom, and why.

Why can’t I prove my programme is effective?
Evaluation blog series continues with Impact Evaluation Lead Mike Woodall looking at how programme designers can maximise the chances of success.

The merry-go-round of evaluation recommendations
A blog series and short reports sharing how to design projects to best support evaluation.

‘NHS 10 Year Plan’: Strategy Unit consultation response
The Strategy Unit’s response to the Government’s current consultation on the ‘10 Year Health Plan’ for England.

What are the downsides of digital?
What are the downsides of digital?

The risks of risk stratification
Medical history is full of bizarre and gruesome procedures.

Want to ease pressure in urgent care? Simply cut community services!?!
What should decision makers do with analysis that challenges deeply held assumptions? In this blog, Fraser Battye reflects on a surprising recent finding about community services.

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.

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.

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.

Bringing patient flow modelling into general practice
With general practice appointments hitting the highest numbers on record (34.8 million in England alone in November 2021), careful organisation and planning for patient appointments is increasingly important.

Strategy Unit devises a new method for classifying outpatient appointments
The number of outpatient attendances in England is now approaching 100 million each year.