
Leadership training and support for organisational development: an offer from the Strategy Unit
The Strategy Unit has long been known for the quality of its analytical work, and the clear, critical thi

What’s philosophy got to do with evidence reviews?
Ever wondered how to make better use of evidence in decision-making? Follow our latest blog series to find out more about how our Evidence and Knowledge Mobilisation team can help you to make sense of and use evidence from research and practice.

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.

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

Emergency department acuity measurement and process: quick scoping review
This review was commissioned to inform NHS England’s Acuity Standardisation Project which aims to agree a standardised method of allocating acuity category (a triage method) for Emergency Departments (EDs) and Urgent Treatment Centres (UTCs).

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.

Autism evidence scan identifies knowledge gaps
Diagnosing autism takes account of a person’s differences in social interaction and communication, sensory sensitivity, interests and behaviours. Yet autism varies hugely from person to person, both in how it looks and how it is experienced.

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.

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.

The impact of social care on demand for urgent hospital care: have we reached a consensus?
The care home COVID crisis and the effects of longstanding staffing and funding shortages has meant that social care has featured heavily in the media over the last 12 months.

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.