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.
Expectations: The hidden driver of healthcare demand
How well do we understand changing expectations and implications for the NHS?
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’.
Hydration, UTIs and older people: learning from NHS pilots about how to improve care
Our evaluation of hydration-focused interventions for older people found promising signs of impact and highlighted the practical and systemic challenges of delivering and sustaining change.
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.
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
Mending smarter, not harder: Changing fracture care for children
The report demonstrates there is significant variation between trusts in England in how paediatric fractures are managed. Widespread adoption of less interventional approaches to paediatric fracture management could result in significant savings in hospital activity, particularly reduced follow-up appointments for uncomplicated fractures.
‘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’
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.
Charisma
In this long read, which first appeared in the HSJ, Fraser Battye - our Head of Policy – looks at the role of charisma and innovation in the way that NHS resources are allocated.
‘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.
Ara Darzi, Wes Streeting and English health policy. Part 2: cutting the knot
Following on from part one, Fraser continues exploring the Gordian Knot of English health policy.
Ara Darzi, Wes Streeting and English health policy. Part 1: the Gordian Knot
Health policy is not at a crossroads, it is in a bind. Strands so entangled, so complex they resemble a Gordian knot. Can this knot be untied?
The risks of risk stratification
Medical history is full of bizarre and gruesome procedures.
Midlands Analyst Network and Huddles
The Midlands Analyst Network was created to provide a space for analysts to share information, ideas and resources, as well as seek advice and guidance from one another.
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.
MDSN: Community Healthcare Services
How Does Access to Community Health Services Vary Across the Midlands?
Ghosted by an old friend
“…personal contact was a vital element in general practice from the beginning. By 1959 50% of people in England regarded their GP as a personal friend.”
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.