Publications | The Strategy Unit

February 2019 Secondary care | Capacity and Demand

Waiting Times and Attendance Durations at English A&E Departments

In March 2019, NHS England is expected to report the outcome of its review of constitutional waiting times targets. This report reviews the factors that have led to the decline in performance against one of these targets - the 4-hour target for Accident and Emergency Departments. The analysis…

February 2019 Integrated Care

New care models - what's the evidence

High level findings from a series of evidence reviews on new care models.

January 2019 Integrated Care

Evaluation of Building the Right Support: findings to date

Building the Right Support is a national plan to provide better support to people with a learning disability or autism. It says what services and supports are needed to help people whose behaviour challenges services or who have mental health problems. This is because too many people are living in…

November 2018 Impact assessment | Secondary care | Service configuration | Service improvement | Capacity and Demand

The Potential Economic Impact of Virtual Outpatient Appointments in the West Midlands: A scoping study

The Strategy Unit was recently approached to examine the case for a shift from traditional outpatient services to the use of virtual and remote access technologies for appropriate outpatient appointments. An essential part of this assessment was broadly scoping the potential socio-economic impacts…

October 2018 Mental health services | Service improvement

Evaluation of an Integrated Mental Health Liaison Service (Rapid Assessment Interface and Discharge Service) in Northern Ireland

A high proportion of patients treated for physical health conditions also have co-morbid mental health problems; and there is growing acceptance of a need to raise awareness of mental health issues in acute hospitals and improve the experience of care and treatment for this group.

October 2018 Integrated Care

The Status of Electronic Palliative Care Coordination Systems in the West Midlands

Commissioned by NHS England, this report describes the state of electronic palliative care coordination systems in the West Midlands. It draws on a review of the literature, interviews with local NHS staff and responses to information requests. As people approach the end of their lives, care…

October 2018 Service improvement

Lessons from the Vanguard: Innovation and Evaluation

The problems facing health and care services are so well known as to be documented in the media most days. These problems arise from a mismatch between need and provision: a mismatch where there is no reason to assume fundamental change. So innovation – in both product and process – is needed. Yet…

October 2018 Service improvement

Making a priority of mental health and wellbeing in Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire has been an early mover in the transition from Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STP) to Integrated Care Systems (ICS) within the NHS in England. As part of that transition, it made a conscious commitment to prioritise the transformation of mental health and wellbeing…

September 2018 Service improvement

Lessons from the Vanguard: Procurement

Dudley was unique within the New Care Models programme for using a large-scale procurement exercise. This exercise therefore offers lessons for both policy and practice. These lessons are set out in a short ‘lessons from the vanguard’ paper, joint-authored by the Strategy Unit and Dudley Clinical…

September 2018 Service improvement

Intelligence-driven health and care: phase two

Following on from the Design Summit in May, the Strategy Unit has continued to work on how Intelligence-driven health and care can improve outcomes for patients and local communities. The project, commissioned by MLCSU, aims to explore the emerging intelligence needs of the health and care sector…

September 2018 Service improvement

Evaluation of the Dudley New Care Models Programme

The Strategy Unit led the evaluation of the Dudley Vanguard programme. This is the final system-wide report from that work. It draws on in-depth interviews with over 20 strategic level stakeholders from the Dudley system. The report looks at both the large-scale procurement process and the…

July 2018 Strategy Unit information

Neighbourhood Network

The Strategy Unit wants to support Neighbourhood Working. We want to help make a success of different services – health, social care, voluntary sector (etc) – coordinating their efforts to improve health outcomes for local populations. To do this, we have initiated a learning network. We held …

July 2018 Mental health services

Making the case for integrating physical and mental health services in England - National overview

This is a national overview report of our Making the case for integrating physical and mental health services reporting which took place in July 2017. The original reports looked at the physical health of people who use mental health services; life expectancy, acute hospital use and opportunities…

June 2018 Secondary care

Risk and Reward Sharing for NHS Integrated Care Systems

Risk and reward sharing is a simple and attractive concept, offering a commissioner the opportunity to co-opt and incentivise a provider to moderate growth in healthcare demand by sharing in the savings or cost over-runs. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a US government agency…

June 2018 Secondary care | Integrated Care

Horizontal or Vertical: Which way to integrate?

In 2011, Primary Care Trusts faced a difficult choice. The Transforming Community Services policy required a complete break of commissioner and provider functions. But what should PCTs do with the community health services they delivered; vertically integrate with an acute trust, horizontally…

June 2018 Strategy Unit information

Annual Report 2017-2018

The Strategy Unit exists to improve outcomes through providing expert support and advice to public and third sector organisations. In an ever-more challenging climate, our rich experience, technical expertise, and operational understanding, enables our clients to achieve success and provide a…

April 2018 Secondary care

Palliative and End of Life Care Report for Children and Young People

Commissioned by NHS England, this report describes the the characteristics and levels of resource required by children and young people (CYP) (0-25 years) with life limiting conditions and/or life threatening conditions (LLC). The scope of this report does not attempt to explain or address the…

February 2018 Impact assessment | Integrated Care

Dudley MCP Scenario Analysis

Dudley is one of fourteen vanguard sites nationally developing the Multispecialty Community Provider (MCP) care model. The MCP involves the implementation of new organisational relationships that are intended to result in new system dynamics, incentivising the actions that can improve population…

December 2017 Service configuration | Service improvement | Integrated Care

Scoping study: the economics of caring

There is a clear moral case for supporting unpaid carers. They play an essential role in the lives of the people they care for; they often do so at a cost to their own wellbeing. But what is the economic case for supporting carers? And to what extent does the evidence base support this case? Where…

December 2017 Service improvement | Integrated Care

Evaluation and complex change

Feedback is a vital component of any complex change programme. Without feedback, it is impossible for policy makers, programme and frontline teams to learn, adapt and improve. The Strategy Unit therefore sees evaluation as a vital part of the mix in making large-scale change. Evaluation is all…