MDSN: Evaluating Social Prescribing Literature Review
Evaluating Social Prescribing – Literature review for the MDSN Evaluation Community of Practice collaborative project The review has been produced to support the Midlands Decision Support Network (MDSN) Evaluation Community of Practice (CoP) collaborative social prescribing evaluation project. The…
MDSN: Decision-making by senior leaders to support recovery from COVID
This paper summarises experiences of Integrated Care System leaders in making strategic decisions to support recovery of services from the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper is a short version of findings from a research study conducted during Q3 2021/22, drawing on interviews of eight out of the forty-…
Inequalities | Public health and prevention | Secondary care
Socio-economic inequalities in coronary heart disease
There are substantial differences in mortality rates from cardiovascular disease between socio-economic groups. Our new tool provides an overview, for ICBs, of the points on the care pathway where inequalities emerge and are amplified
Evaluation and impact assessment | Futures thinking | Learning and development | Strategy development
Evaluating and embedding social values in procurement at East London NHS Foundation Trust
This report presents emerging findings from the early development stages of a social value approach to procurement by East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT). These findings provide insights for other organisations beginning to explore how to use procurement to contribute to improving health and…
Elective care | Inequalities | Policy
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.
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.
Evidence reviews
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.
Strategy Unit information
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.
Inequalities | Policy | Primary, community and social care services
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.
Better use of analysis | Policy
Advancing the analytical capability of the NHS and its ICS partners
The Strategy Unit were asked by the Strategy and Development Team in the Directorate of the Chief Data and Analytics Officer, NHSE/I, to make recommendations for advancing analytical capability across the health and care workforce.
Mental health | Policy
Estimating the impact of the proposed reforms to the Mental Health Act on the workload of psychiatrists
In January 2021, the Government published a White Paper, setting out its plans to reform the Mental Health Act. The Government invited views on the paper and in July 2021, it published a summary of the consultation responses and its plans to address the issues raised. The proposed reforms aim to…
INSIGHT 2021: Insight to action - lessons from think tanks
The Midlands Decision Support Network exists to support health and care leaders generate insights from high quality analysis and evaluation and move these into action – better, evidence-informed strategic decisions in Integrated Care Systems. But moving insight to action is challenging –…
A new resource to support analysis of outpatient services: Classifying activity by function
The number of outpatient attendances in England is now approaching 100 million each year.[1] In 2017/18, the estimated cost of this care was over £9 billion – or 8% of the total NHS England budget. So, isn’t it strange how little we know about outpatient activity and, in particular, the…
INSIGHT 2021: Misinformation and how do we tackle it?
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director-general, famously said in the early days of the COVID pandemic: “We’re not just fighting a pandemic; we’re fighting an infodemic”. Misinformation and conspiracy theories have become endemic and teams within health and care systems have seen the impact on…
INSIGHT 2021: Insight to Action. How can we change behaviour?
So we’ve gathered all the data and evidence, we understand the problem and we know what we think the best solution is…so how do we actually make a change? We all know that change is hard, things might improve for a while but then people just drift back into old habits, others just never seem to get…
INSIGHT 2021: Reducing health inequalities - the practical & ethical challenges
This session debated the ethical challenges around addressing health inequalities. We heard from our expert panel as Insight 2021 looks at the ethical and practical challenges of reducing health inequalities. Professor Sir Michael Marmot: Professor of Epidemiology at University College London,…
INSIGHT 2021: Data for the head, stories for the heart
Death is certain, yet our planning doesn’t reflect this. At the individual level, conversations and preparations are frequently missing or patchy. And at the population level we also don’t plan well for what is coming. So how do we improve this? How can we make better use of data and analysis that…
INSIGHT 2021: Data for the head, stories for the heart
Death is certain, yet our planning doesn’t reflect this. At the individual level, conversations and preparations are frequently missing or patchy. And at the population level we also don’t plan well for what is coming. So how do we improve this? How can we make better use of data and analysis that…
INSIGHT 2021: The most valuable value - a health and care resourcing dilemma
We heard discussions from experts from the NHS, NICE and academia (Andi Orlowski, Gwyn Bevan, Deborah O’Callaghan, Peter Spilsbury) on the challenge of finding value through efficiency and allocating resources appropriately. Andi Orlowski, from the Health Economics Unit was joined by this…
Insight 2021: Sharing your awesomeness!
The session looked at how we can put insight into action through remarkable stories, working with communication teams, spreading your ideas and standing out from the crowd. Join Tom Parnell and Matthew Grek on their mission to help you maximise action from your insights! Tom Parnell,…