News
From ‘right drift’ to ‘left shift’?
Our Head of Policy, Fraser Battye, looks at the challenges facing the intention to shift care ‘from hospital to community’. He suggests that we have missed a critical part of the explanation for why this ‘left shift’ hasn’t taken place following previous initiatives.
News
Our collective responsibility to share evaluation findings
The Strategy Unit is increasingly being commissioned to undertake evaluations on the pre
News
Why can’t I prove my programme is effective?
Evaluation blog series continues with Impact Evaluation Lead Mike Woodall looking at how programme designers can maximise the chances of success.
News
The merry-go-round of evaluation recommendations
A blog series and short reports sharing how to design projects to best support evaluation.
News
Evaluating NHS England’s national approach to tackling healthcare inequalities
NHS England have commissioned the Strategy Unit to evaluate the national Core20PLUS5 approach for reducing healthcare inequalities.
News
Ara Darzi, Wes Streeting and English health policy. Part 2: cutting the knot
Following on from part one, Fraser continues exploring the Gordian Knot of English health policy.
News
Ara Darzi, Wes Streeting and English health policy. Part 1: the Gordian Knot
Health policy is not at a crossroads, it is in a bind. Strands so entangled, so complex they resemble a Gordian knot. Can this knot be untied?
News
The risks of risk stratification
Medical history is full of bizarre and gruesome procedures.
News
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.
News
Outcome-based commissioning: can we rescue promise from the rubble of hype?
The first effect of policy is on expectations. In every case I can think of, the effect is inflationary.
News
Playing our part in conversations about death
“Dad, why are all your ‘peptalks’ about death?” Children can be a source of fundamental insight. They seem to specialise in feedback of the unvarnished, unmediated and fully caffeinated variety. The kind of feedback that cuts straight to it. My youngest daughter, mid-way through our sunny walk down the hill to school, pressed on: “And you wear black all the time. You look like a crow…” Fundamental insight, and now fashion advice. This was quite the school run.
News
Need, demand, and supply of GP services: an old lens on an ever-present problem
About 20 years ago, I attended a lecture given by Andrew Stevens, a rather formidable and austere Professor of Public Health at the Un
News
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.”
News
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.
News
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.
News
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?
News
Strategy Unit Podcast
The SU Podcast is a monthly digest of our current work hearing from our multidisciplinary team.
News
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.
News
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.