NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE & I) are exploring the opportunity of applying seasonal profiling in elective care.

Cuts to council social care budgets are often cited as a cause of pressure on NHS urgent and emergency care services. Much of the evidence supporting this link, however, is anecdotal. We set out to try and quantify the effect of cuts to social care on older people’s use of emergency healthcare services, and our research has just been published in BMJ Open.

As we continue our series of viewpoints on the physical and clinical mental health divide, Colette Marshall, Director of Operations at Diabetes UK brings the perspective of those living with a chronic health condition.

In this fifth guest blog, in our series of viewpoints on the physical and clinical mental health divide, Dr Paul Turner, General Practitioner at Karis Medical Centre, Birmingham and Joint Clinical Director for Mental Health, NHSE West Midlands Clinical Network describes the cost of untreated complexity.

On International Womens Day 2019, Abeda Mulla from the Strategy Unit reflects on our gendered society that has led to poorer health outcomes in women.

The Strategy Unit has been leading the way on supporting local NHS bodies to consider the wider economic impact of how they operate. Here, David Frith highlights what a shift this is for the NHS, along with the range of opportunities NHS bodies should consider exploring.

Continuing our mental and physical health guest blog series, Sophie Corlett the Director of External Relations at Mind provides some perspectives from people with physical ailments who are users of mental health services.

Jennifer Dixon, Chief Executive of the Health Foundation, reflects on the relationship between mental and physical health and the need for better integration of care.

David Frith leads our strategy consultancy work with NHS and third sector organisations. Here, reflecting on participating at a recent international conference on Scenario Planning and Foresight where he presented research on how scenario planning practice can be improved[1], he suggests a shift in the focus of strategic planning in the NHS.

Repeatedly, published evaluations show that community/primary care services interventions with a stated intention to reduce total (or forecast total) emergency admissions to hospital don’t achieve the expected result**