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Our work

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Man sitting at desk with hands on table and female clinician completing form
Report 06/06/2025

Scoping a Health Needs Assessment for Adults on Probation in England

This scoping report explores the health inequalities experienced by people on probation and the limited data on their health needs and engagement with health services. It sets out recommendations for commissioning and delivering a national health needs assessment to address that data gap and support local health needs assessments for the probation population.

Image of two young children wearing VR headsets
Report 15/10/2024

What are the downsides of digital?

What are the downsides of digital?

Support elderly woman
Report 10/05/2024

MDSN: Community Healthcare Services

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

Two graphs showing Primary Medical Services and All NHS Services
Report 29/02/2024

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

GP Practice productivity, efficiency, and continuity of care

Graph showing mean consultations per person by ICB
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

Graph showing consultations per patient per year by year
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.

Summary of findings from the study
Report 18/10/2023

Menopause and the NHS workforce

The impact of the menopause on the NHS workforce. The Strategy Unit and Health Economics Unit report on their mixed methods findings.

Cropped Hospital Scanner
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. ​

graphic showing inequality being erased with eraser
Report 04/11/2022

What are the ethical challenges in addressing inequities?

Produced by Angie Hobbs - the world’s first Professor in the Public Understanding of Philosophy – this paper examines the ethical questions raised by our report outlining strategies for reducing inequity.

Nurse checking patient's IV
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.

Green blocks with arrows
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.

Background of circles in different colours with the words Autism in scrabble letters
Report 29/03/2022

Autism evidence scan identifies knowledge gaps

Diagnosing autism takes account of a person’s differences in social interaction and communication, sensory sensitivity, interests and behaviours. Yet autism varies hugely from person to person, both in how it looks and how it is experienced.

Organogram showing sub headings against Family, Community, Use of health services, Occupational, and Policy and guidelines
Report 23/03/2022

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.

Logos: Strategy Unit, ICF, University of Birmingham, BILD
Report 12/11/2021

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.

people sitting on chairs at a conference with view from back of room to speaker
Report 27/07/2021

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.

Woman facing wall covered in handwritten hearts wearing black waistcoat showing  National Covid Memorial Wall
Report 06/07/2021

Measuring the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on population health

Measuring the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on population health

Looking through a camera lens held by a hand at view of countryside
Report 22/06/2021

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.

I've had my covid vaccine sticker with crown and heart in centre
Report 04/06/2021

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.

10 min review
Graph showing planned care inequalities
Report 12/05/2021

Socio-economic inequalities in access to planned hospital care: causes and consequences

Tacking inequalities in health is a long-standing NHS policy objective. Variation in the experiences and outcomes of different communities during the COVID-19 pandemic served to bring this issue back into focus.

Pagination

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