Discharged without a diagnosis
In 2023/24, one million people who were admitted to an NHS hospital in an emergency, were later discharged without a diagnosis. This long-read examines what this means for patients and providers.
Continuity in primary care: the safest bet we aren’t able to make?
In this long-read, which first appeared in the HSJ, Fraser Battye asks whether focusing on continuity might also improve access to primary care
What explains the recent growth in hospital activity?
In this long read, Fraser Battye describes our analysis of what has driven the growth in hospital activity.
A journey into intersectionality
A practical exploration of intersectionality, testing theory through quantitative analysis of hospital readmissions.
The enduring ‘messy programme’ with ‘mixed results’
The diagram below shows me at my most cynical.
Planning for rising renal demand: simulating capacity across the care system
Demand for kidney replacement therapy is rising, and current capacity will not be sufficient over the next decade. This work uses simulation modelling to help systems understand future pressures and test potential responses.
Beating the backlog: Meeting the waiting list challenge
The NHS waiting list in England must halve to reach waiting time targets.
Strengthening ethnicity data across the NHS: developing the national improvement plan
Our analysis and stakeholder engagement supported NHS England to develop the national Ethnicity Recording Improvement Plan.
10-Year Productivity Forecast for the English NHS: An Expert Elicitation Study
Expert elicitation exercise commissioned by and in collaboration with the Health Foundation has produced forecasts of NHS productivity rates over the next 10 years.
The Strategy Unit contribution to neighbourhood health
Our role in supporting the national effort to turn the vision of neighbourhood health into action by providing evidence, analysis and insight.
Cancer and comorbidities: An Evidence Review of Diagnosis, Treatment, and Experience
An evidence review on the challenges and disparities faced by individuals living with cancer alongside other long-term conditions.
Making sense of failure demand in the NHS
I must be an unpleasant creature to share a room with. I snore. I smell. And I’m seemingly addicted to my way of doing things.
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.
The decline in care continuity is not inevitable
Relational continuity of care, the extent to which patients have an ongoing relationship with a specific clinician in their GP practice, is perhaps
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’.
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.
Are there any non-technical ‘rules of thumb’ for assessing the quality of analysis?
The report below is from a short project that explored a simple set of questions:
Things can only get better (?)
Introducing a new online tool to help local health and care service planners think differently about healthy ageing.
Transforming Hospital Planning with an Open-Source Demand and Capacity Model
We are proud to announce the open-sourcing of a demand and capacity model, developed with the New Hospitals Programme, to transform NHS hospital planning with transparency, collaboration, and efficiency.
Our role in the New Hospital Programme
Learn how the Strategy Unit’s innovative model is transforming hospital planning by providing a consistent, data-driven approach to forecast future demand and evidence-based decision making.