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Blog post 27/03/2025

‘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’

Long read 05/03/2025

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.

Blog post 14/02/2025

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.

Long read 12/12/2024

‘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.

Blog post 10/10/2024

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.

Blog post 04/10/2024

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?

Event 01/06/2024

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.

Confused man
Blog post 20/05/2024

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.

Support elderly woman
Report 10/05/2024

MDSN: Community Healthcare Services

How Does Access to Community Health Services Vary Across the Midlands?

Blog post 23/04/2024

Playing our part in conversations about death

“Dad, why are all your ‘peptalks’ about death?” Children can be a source of fundamental insight. They seem to specialise in feedback of the unvarnished, unmediated and fully caffeinated variety. The kind of feedback that cuts straight to it. My youngest daughter, mid-way through our sunny walk down the hill to school, pressed on: “And you wear black all the time. You look like a crow…” Fundamental insight, and now fashion advice. This was quite the school run.

Report 29/02/2024

MDSN: GP practice productivity, efficiency, and continuity of care

GP Practice productivity, efficiency, and continuity of care

Report 29/02/2024

MDSN: The gap between need and supply of GP practice consultations

The gap between need and supply of GP practice consultations

Podcast 29/02/2024

MDSN: Long-term trends in GP practice Consultation Rates

GP practice consultations are, by some distance, the most common interaction between the NHS and the population it serves.

dandelion with seeds floating away
Report 31/01/2024

A Picture of End-of-Life Care in England

Working with Macmillan our analysis investigates who is more likely to experience poor outcomes associated with shortcomings in end-of-life care? Are there particular areas in England where those at end-of-life face significant challenges and how might the supply of services in an area be influencing these?

12/10/2023

MDSN: AI tools for evidence synthesis

With the advancing sophistication of AI and automation-based tools, we explore their use for evidence synthesis.

11/10/2023

Rural Health Inequalities

The UK Government (2016) define rural areas as those which

 An ophthalmologist examining a patient's eye with an ophthalmoscope
Podcast 09/10/2023

Review of Ophthalmic Managed Clinical Networks (MCNs) in Staffordshire and Shropshire

The aim of the MCNs is to bring together primary care optometrists with local ophthalmologists within a geographical area. This is a review Strategy Unit were commissioned by NHS England to work with a medical retina MCN in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and a glaucoma MCN in Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent, to review their work so far and look at the opportunities the networks present.

25/07/2023

Exploring MSK Patient Pathways – Produced by Healthier Futures, Black Country

Exploring MSK Patient Pathways Patient Experiences: Facilitators and Barriers. And The Way Forward Full ReportJune 2023 

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. ​

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