Want to ease pressure in urgent care? Simply cut community services!?!
What should decision makers do with analysis that challenges deeply held assumptions? In this blog, Fraser Battye reflects on a surprising recent finding about community services.
Ghosted by an old friend
“…personal contact was a vital element in general practice from the beginning. By 1959 50% of people in England regarded their GP as a personal friend.”
Part-time GPs and the decline in continuity of care: a cause or a symptom?
In our recent paper we explore why levels of care continuity have been declining and what might be done to turn things around.
Two sides of the same coin
Hospital demand arising from GPs not seeing patients, is eating into the resources that they would use to manage down the elective backlog. In turn, this is creating more demand for GPs.
Are GP consultation rates rising or falling? Who or what should we believe?
If the "data suggests" GP appointments are substantially higher than pre-pandemic, then what is behind patients reporting recieving fewer appointments?
GP services: new analysis and fresh insights
In our latest analysis for the Midlands Decision Support Network (MDSN), we explore the long standing problem of access to GP practice consultations we consider the implications, and explore potential solutions.
A collaborative partnership with the Health Foundation
The Strategy Unit is collaborating with the Health Foundation to help address key health and social care issues by combining our expertise in data analysis.
How data makes things worse
All light brings shade. My list of ‘changes that have been all upside and no downside’ is short and debatable.
Menopause and the NHS workforce
The impact of the menopause on the NHS workforce. The Strategy Unit and Health Economics Unit report on their mixed methods findings.
Leadership training and support for organisational development: an offer from the Strategy Unit
The Strategy Unit has long been known for the quality of its analytical work, and the clear, critical thi
What’s philosophy got to do with evidence reviews?
Ever wondered how to make better use of evidence in decision-making? Follow our latest blog series to find out more about how our Evidence and Knowledge Mobilisation team can help you to make sense of and use evidence from research and practice.
Diagnosing harms?
All medicines are poisons. Everything that cures could kill if administered in the wrong doses, to the wrong people, at the wrong times, in the wrong ways.
How is growth in diagnostic testing affecting the hospital system?
Diagnostic services, such as medical imaging, endoscopy, and pathology, have grown substantially in recent years and at a faster rate than most other healthcare services. Increased diagnostic testing brings benefits to patients, but rapid growth of this service area within a complex, adaptive system such as the NHS is likely to have had unintended consequences. Midlands ICBs wanted to understand the impact of diagnostic growth on hospital services.
Population health implications of the Covid-19 pandemic
Our new report for The Midlands Decision Support Network (MDSN) presents findings of the effects of the care disruption, from the Covid-19 pandemic, on population health. The in-depth analysis identifies which patients and health conditions should be the focus of future efforts in reducing inequalities caused by the pandemic.
Urgent Community Response – What Works?
The Strategy Unit, with our partners Ipsos, has been commissioned by NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSEI) to provide a long-term national evaluation of the Urgent Community Response programme rolled-out across England. The programme aims to shift resources to home and community-based services as part of the NHS commitment to providing the right care, to the right people, at the right time. And there are a range of outputs from the early work that provide learning for local systems as they develop their services.
Bringing patient flow modelling into general practice
With general practice appointments hitting the highest numbers on record (34.8 million in England alone in November 2021), careful organisation and planning for patient appointments is increasingly important.
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.
What do we know about the benefits of digital social care records?
The pace of change in the development and use of digital technology is astonishing. The use of such technology has been an essential element in the health and care services response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In many cases, the previously unthinkable became commonplace.
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.