Welcome to the Midlands Analyst Network

Thank you for being part of our growing community! If you are an analyst who works in health & care or the wider public sector, then join the Midlands Analyst Network!

Launched in April 2020, this thriving community now connects well over 1,000 members from a wide range of organisations—primarily in the Midlands, but increasingly from across the UK. It provides a supportive space for analysts to share ideas, resources, and good practice, as well as to seek advice, spark debate, and develop skills together.

I love how the huddles have grown into a space beyond simply sharing ideas and work, to a regular opportunity for analysts to come together as a community. They frequently lead to insightful and previously unconsidered questions and debates and also serve as a fantastic welcoming opportunity for those dipping their toes into the world of analytics and improved decision making. Andi Orlowski, Director of the Health Economics Unit

Meet your Network lead: Rachel Caswell

Rachel is a Senior Healthcare Analyst at the Strategy Unit and the Lead for Training & Development. She's passionate about developing the Network and supporting analysts across the system to connect, learn, and lead through collaboration.

Fortnightly Huddles

At the heart of the Network are our fortnightly online Huddles, hosted on MS Teams (see link below). The Huddles cover a large range of topics and you are very welcome to join one at any time – for quick access to a Huddle, just follow the link below. You don’t have to be a member of the Midlands Analyst Network to come to a Huddle but if you’d like to be kept up to date with all future Huddles and training opportunities then just contact Rachel (rachel.caswell@nhs.net) and we’ll take it from there.

We try to keep them as informal but as informative as possible and welcome contributions from Network members as well from academia, subject specialists, national and occasionally international presenters.

If you have any queries about the Huddles, how to access them, if you want to find out what’s gone before, or you want to present then please contact Rachel.

N.B. no Huddle on the 21st August - SUMMER BREAK!

Next Huddle: 4th September (11-12): Introducing the Strategy Unit Demand Model

Well, I've mentioned this for a long time and the wait is over, almost! The Strategy Unit open-source demand model has been named the 2025 winner of the Florence Nightingale Award for Excellence in Health and Care Analytics, recognised for its innovative approach.

Join this Huddle to find out more about it - the approach we used - why it's different and how it could help transform the planning of hospital and community services across health and care in the next 10 years and beyond.

Led by Chris Beeley, Head of Data Science at the Strategy Unit, this session will explore:

Why the model was created and the story so far
How it identifies hospital activity that could be avoided, delivered in other settings or that could be delivered more efficiently
How it helps build a picture of people at risk of preventable conditions – supporting early intervention
What makes the approach different: elicitation, probabilistic thinking, and system-wide collaboration
Examples of use so far and the insights emerging
How you can get involved in shaping its development

Whether you’re an analyst, leader or other decision-maker in health and care, this is your chance to see how the Demand Model can help us better understand and respond to the challenges of healthcare demand and how it can help with the movement of care out of acute hospital settings.

The model is open source, meaning it belongs to the whole system – and your ideas and input will help shape its future.

For analysts and everyone who is interested in our approach to modelling the and how it's being used already - please join this session!

How to join the Huddle!

Via your normal Calendar invite
Via Teams link below
Via the Eventbrite registration process

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday 4th September at 11!

Same Teams link as usual and if you don't have this - it's here!

Click here to join the meeting Hop in at 11 am!

14/11/2024

Ordnance Survey (OS) Data supporting local health

MAN Huddle: 14/11/2024

Ordnance Survey (OS) Data supporting local health

View on YouTube

Return

31/10/2024

NHSquicker: Shaping Demand for Urgent Care Using Real-Time Data and Digital Nudges

MAN Huddle: 31/10/2024

NHSquicker: Shaping Demand for Urgent Care Using Real-Time Data and Digital Nudges

With Nav Mustafee, Professor of Operations Management and Analytics at the University of Exeter Business School

	Date	Topic / YouTube Link	Presenters	Presentations
August	07/08/2025	Simplifying statistical process control with I-prime charts	Jacob Anhøj and Professor Mohammed A Mohammed
July	24/07/2025	‘Rules of Thumb' for assessing the quality of analysis	Fraser Battye (Strategy Unit) and Danielle Jefferies (The Kings Fund)	Presentation
July	10/07/2025	Understanding the costs and benefits of interventions in cervical cancer	Lisa Cummins, Lead Health Economist, Health Economics Unit	Presentation
June	26/06/2025	Humans, AI and the Importance of Data Literacy	With Dan Isaac, Data Literacy & Training Lead, Exeter University
June	12/06/2025	Reshaping the pattern of care - Sizing and exploring the left shift challenge	With Jennifer Wood and Justine Wiltshire, The Strategy Unit	Presentation
May	29/05/2025	How we are using data in Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland, to drive transformation of urgent and emergency care services	With Janine Dellar, Head of Strategic Business Intelligence and George MacDonald, Data Scientist	Presentation: Complex Care Evaluation Health Inequalities in ED Attendance Data
May	15/05/2025	An introduction to problem structuring	With Steven Wyatt, Head of Research and Policy at the Strategy Unit	Presentation
May	01/05/2025	An update AphA (Association of Professional Healthcare Analysts)	With Jane Johnston (Co-CEO) and Jeannette Fraser (AphA SE Branch Lead & WIHD Network Committee Lead)	Presentation
April	17/04/2025	Evaluating the Heart Failure Targeted Funding Programme 2023/24 (Strategy Unit)	With Faizan Mahmood and Andre Bilbrough, from the Strategy Unit
April	03/04/2025	Toy models – Complex problems in small packages! and How much healthcare will our population need in five, ten, 20 years' time?”	With Andy Hood and Lucy Morgan, and Paul Seamer, from the Strategy Unit	Presentation - Paul Seamer Presentation - Toy Models
March	20/03/2025	Updates from the Warwickshire Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA)	With Michael Maddocks Programme Manager – JSNA, Warwickshire CC
February	20/02/2025	Public expenditure in the last year of life - Nuffield Trust & Health Economics Unit	With Lisa Cummins and Gayathri Kumar, The Health Economics Unit
February	06/02/2025	Making Data Count: What is it and why should I know about it?	With Adam Smith, Making Data Count Team	Presentation
January	23/01/2025	Process Mining in Healthcare – Opportunities and Challenges	With Owen Johnson, Director of Impact, School of Computer Science, University of Leeds

	Date	Topic / YouTube Link	Presenters	Presentations
December	12/12/2024	COMPLEX-IT: Enabling Non-Experts to Leverage Advanced Computational Modelling for Policy Evaluation and Decision Making	with Brian Castellani, Professor of Social and Public Health, Director, Research Methods Centre, Co-Director, Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing, Durham University
November	28/11/2024	HDR UK Midlands – Building a regional data science network	with Kevin Dunn, HDR UK Programme Manager	Presentation
November	14/11/2024	Ordinance Survey (OS) Data supporting local health
October	31/10/2024	NHSquicker: Shaping Demand for Urgent Care Using Real-Time Data and Digital Nudges	with Nav Mustafee, Professor of Operations Management and Analytics at the University of Exeter Business School
October	17/10/2024	Modelling Long-Term Changes in Population Health State and Associated Healthcare Resource Requirements	with Luke Shaw (NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB)	Presentation Slides HACA Recap Slides
October	03/10/2024	National Competency Framework – 1 year on!	with Sarah Blundell and Andy Lavelle (NHSE)
September	05/09/2024	Health equity and the humaniverse	with Dr Matt Thomas, Head of Strategic Insight & Foresight, British Red Cross	Presentation
August	22/08/2024	The Empowering Futures, Growing Up Well in Warwickshire, Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA)	with Michael Maddocks, Matthew Head, and Thomas Mansbridge (Warwickshire County Council)
August	08/08/2024	Health inequalities in 2040: Current and future patterns of inequalities in illness in England	with Ann Raymond, The Health Foundation	Presentation
July	11/07/2024	What are the impacts of poor questions from decision makers, and how do we improve this?	with Andrew Lavelle, NHS England
June	27/06/2024	Describing general practice staffing mix using latent profile analysis	with Alex Lawless, The Health Foundation
June	13/06/2024	How much healthcare will our population need in 5, 10, 20 years’ time?	with Paul Seamer (Strategy Unit)	Presentation
May	30/05/2024	Forecasting in Retail and Healthcare – addressing common themes	with Dr Bahman Rostami-Tabar, Professor of Data-Driven Decision Science, Cardiff University and Dr Stephan Kolassa, Data Science Expert
May	16/05/2024	Assessing impact of specialist workforce - children & young people with epilepsy	Joe Lillington, HEU
May	02/05/2024	Kent JSNA Cohort Model	with Abraham George and Peter Lacey	Presentation Q and A
April	18/04/2024	The National Competency Framework – an update	with Sarah Blundell and Andy Lavelle (NHSE)
April	04/04/2024	How to automatically backup SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports		Presentation Program code
March	21/03/2024	The 85% bed occupancy fallacy	with Nathan Proudlove, The University of Manchester	Presentation
March	07/03/2024	Using the Community Services Dataset to investigate variation in access	with Andrew Jones (Strategy Unit)
February	22/02/2024	How COVID activity and system responses impacted Urgent Care	with Andy McCann, and Kelly Bishop (MLCSU)	Presentation
February	08/02/2024	The gap between need and supply of GP practice consultations	with Steven Wyatt (Strategy Unit)
January	25/10/2024	What’s driving increasing length of stay in hospitals since 2019?	with Andrew Mooney (The Health Foundation)
January	11/01/2024	Long term trends in GP practice consultation rates	with Steven Wyatt (Strategy Unit)

Midlands Analyst Network and Huddles MDSN June 2024

Welcome to the Midlands Analyst Network

Thank you for being part of our growing community! If you are an analyst who works in health & care or the wider public sector, then join the Midlands Analyst Network!

Meet your Network lead: Rachel Caswell

Fortnightly Huddles

N.B. no Huddle on the 21st August - SUMMER BREAK!

For analysts and everyone who is interested in our approach to modelling the and how it's being used already - please join this session!

How to join the Huddle!

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday 4th September at 11!

Same Teams link as usual and if you don't have this - it's here!

Click here to join the meeting Hop in at 11 am!

🎥 Catch up! See Huddle recordings below:

2025

2024

2023

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Midlands Analyst Network and Huddles

MDSN

June 2024