The NHS as an anchor institution: addressing fuel poverty
The number of households in fuel poverty in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent (SSoT) is higher than the national average. As anchor institutions, NHS organisations can use their assets to influence the health and wellbeing of their local communities. The Strategy Unit was asked by the Midlands NHS Greening Board to evaluate a cross-sector initiative in SSoT to help alleviate fuel poverty using savings generated through solar panels on NHS buildings. The project is called Keep Warm, Keep Well.
Evaluating and embedding social values in procurement at East London NHS Foundation Trust
This report presents emerging findings from the early development stages of a social value approach to procurement by East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT). These findings provide insights for other organisations beginning to explore how to use procurement to contribute to improving health and reducing health inequalities.
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.
We don’t just need to hear ‘you are more affected’ - what’s the action?
The experience of minority ethnic people symptomatic for COVID-19 in the first UK wave of the pandemic.
Evaluation of Building the Right Support: Final Reports
Building the Right Support was a national plan to provide better support to people with a learning disability or autism.
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.
Estimating the impact of the proposed reforms to the Mental Health Act on the workload of psychiatrists
In January 2021, the Government published a White Paper, setting out its plans to reform the Mental Health Act.
Inequities in children and young people’s mental health services
Good mental health during early years and childhood has a great bearing on health throughout life.
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.
Increasing vaccine uptake
The purpose of this work was to identify the key features of local initiatives which encourage vaccine uptake in different population groups, and share these for others to learn from.
Some positive news for integrating GP practices with hospital trusts
The drive for greater integration of health and care services has been the central theme of UK health policy for most of
Learning from lockdown: support for people experiencing homelessness
There are few clearer measures of societal health than homelessness.
Making sense of evidence
It's time to celebrate World Evidence-Based Healthcare (EBHC) Day. In a world dominated by COVID-19 and the associated infodemic, this day arguably has more resonance. Closer to home, EBHC Day also coincides with our Insight 2020 festival and the launch of the Midlands Decision Support network. What better opportunity to ask, 'what does evidence-informed decision making actually mean'?
Insight 2020 - Week 6: Making the most of our decision-making resources
The final week’s theme was a reflection on what had been heard in the previous weeks.We thoug
Insight 2020 - Week 5: The decision-making toolkit
Decision-making is an art; we can train at it, rehearse and access tools to support us.
Insight 2020 - Week 4: Exploring Health Inequalities
COVID-19 has shone a light on health inequalities; it has “laid bare our longstanding social, economic and political inequalities…” (BMJ,
Insight 2020 - Week 3: Analytical priorities of the Decision Support Network
The Midlands Decision Support Unit Network has defined its analytical priorities for 20/21.
Insight 2020 - Week 2: The role of the Decision Support Network
The Midlands Decision Support Unit (DSU) Network is a new and emerging approach to bring together analytical resource a
Insight 2020 - Week 1: Our decision making context in 2020
Transformation in health and care has been rapid and intensive, particularly in 2020.