
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.

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.

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:

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.

‘To risk stratify or not risk stratify, that is the question’ (At least, it should be)
Risk stratification tools are ubiquitous in healthcare. The concept is simple and seductive.

What are the downsides of digital?
What are the downsides of digital?

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.

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

GP services: new analysis and fresh insights
In our latest analysis for the Midlands Decision Support Network (MDSN), we explore the long standing problem of access to GP practice consultations we consider the implications, and explore potential solutions.

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

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

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.

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?

A collaborative partnership with the Health Foundation
The Strategy Unit is collaborating with the Health Foundation to help address key health and social care issues by combining our expertise in data analysis.

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.