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Report 03/05/2023

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.

Population health implications of the Covid-19 pandemic graph
Report 16/01/2023

Population health implications of the Covid-19 pandemic

​​Our new report for The Midlands Decision Support Network (MDSN) presents findings of the effects of the care disruption, from the Covid-19 pandemic, on population health. The in-depth analysis identifies which patients and health conditions should be the focus of future efforts in reducing inequalities caused by the pandemic. ​

16/12/2022

MDSN: Evaluating Social Prescribing Literature Review

Evaluating Social Prescribing – Literature review for the MDSN Evaluation Community of Practice collaborative project

16/12/2022

MDSN: Decision-making by senior leaders to support recovery from COVID

This paper summarises experiences of Integrated Care System leaders in making strategic decisions to support recovery of services from

Socio-economic inequalities in coronary heart disease
Report 09/12/2022

Socio-economic inequalities in coronary heart disease

There are substantial differences in mortality rates from cardiovascular disease between socio-economic groups.  Our new tool provides an overview, for ICBs, of the points on the care pathway where inequalities emerge and are amplified

Insight 2022 - Day 1
Blog post 21/11/2022

Insight 2022 - Day 1 - ICSs working together to be intelligence-led organisations: lessons from history

ICSs working together to be intelligence-led organisations: lessons from historyHow can Integrated Care Systems (ICS

Long read 27/09/2022

Helping ICSs to reduce inequalities in access to planned care

Are there inequalities in access to planned care? If so, what are they? Which groups ‘gain’ and which groups suffer? And what could be done to address any inequalities? In pursuing their objective of reducing inequalities, what could Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) do? What strategies and approaches are likely to be successful?

Blog post 27/09/2022

What matters when waiting? – involving the public in NHS waiting list prioritisation

As the NHS emerged out of the pandemic, it was confronted with the challenge of not only recovery of unprecedented waiting lists, but with inequalities which required attention. NHS leaders challenged providers to restore inclusively and at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, we have developed a way of doing just that, whilst simultaneously reducing waiting times for all.

Blog post 26/07/2022

Inequalities in access to healthcare - what’s our next move?

Our research, published in the Lancet Regional Health Europe, highlights substantial inequities in access to elective hip replacement surgery. We found no evidence that these inequities reduced between 2006 and 2016.

Blog post 01/07/2022

Blog: Strategies to reduce inequalities in planned care

MDSN responds to recent reports addressing the NHS waiting list crisis

Report 09/05/2022

Strategies to reduce inequalities in access to planned hospital procedures

UPDATE 10th August: Now including briefing note for Integrated Care Boards on legal duties in respect of reducing inequalities. This report guides ICBs through the process.

01/05/2022

Guest blog: Anthropology offers a strangely familiar approach to understanding decisions

Long read 01/04/2022

Strategies to reduce inequalities in access to planned hospital procedures

In our 2021 report, we described how people living in more deprived areas have poorer access to planned hospital care than their more affluent counterparts.

Blog post 11/03/2022

Treating people on waiting lists: who decides what is fair?

Waiting lists for elective care are in the news. The national plan has been issued, with the expectation that lists will continue to rise for some years - and that long waiting will not disappear anytime soon. Addressing this ‘backlog’ will remain a fundamental challenge for some time to come.

laptop and cup
02/12/2021

PHM ExploreR

NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire CCG presenting PHM ExploreR which is an open source tool for Population Health M

15/10/2021

INSIGHT 2021: Insight to action - lessons from think tanks

The Midlands Decision Support Network exists to support health and care leaders generate insights from high quality analysis and evalu

14/10/2021

A new resource to support analysis of outpatient services: Classifying activity by function

 

14/10/2021

INSIGHT 2021: Misinformation and how do we tackle it?

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director-general, famously said in the early days of the COVID pandemic: “We’re not just fightin

13/10/2021

INSIGHT 2021: Insight to Action. How can we change behaviour?

So we’ve gathered all the data and evidence, we understand the problem and we know what we think the best solution is…so how do we act

12/10/2021

INSIGHT 2021: Reducing health inequalities - the practical & ethical challenges

This session debated the ethical challenges around addressing health inequalities.

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