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.

The report below is from a short project that explored a simple set of questions:

Are there ways of spotting poor analysis that don’t rely upon technical knowledge? 

Are there ‘rules of thumb’ that could orient decision makers – who typically don’t have analytical expertise - when thinking about the likely reliability of quantitative analysis? 

How might decision makers know when a more detailed, and specialist, review of technical work is needed? Can their intuitions be primed?

Being commissioned by the Mayor of London to produce independent reviews of proposals for major service change, affecting Londoners, perfectly aligns with our commitment to help the health and care system make better decisions and ultimately achieve benefits for population health and wellbeing. 

Evaluation is key to making better decisions in health and care– understanding what works, for whom, and why. But good decisions require robust evidence, and robust evidence starts with effective evaluations. These help us decide what to do next, what to invest in, what to improve. 

This practical guide equips you with the tools to design and deliver effective health and care evaluations, regardless of your resources. From planning your evaluation to presenting impactful results, it’s your step-by-step manual for evidence-based decision-making.

‘SU Insights’ is a series of events hosted by the Strategy Unit, exploring the latest analytical insights with leading experts.

Risk stratification tools are ubiquitous in healthcare. The concept is simple and seductive. By predicting the risk of future adverse events, we should be able to target efforts to avoid/mitigate them. Doing so would save both money and misery.  

The Strategy Unit’s response to the Government’s current consultation on the ‘10 Year Health Plan’ for England.