Blog

In the past, attempts to bring about change in general practice has focused on targets and financial levers. However, as we found in our work to support the Fuller ‘stocktake’, approaches that focus on culture, and efforts to cultivate bottom-up change that empowers frontline staff are far more effective in bringing about positive change.

With health and social care conspicuously absent from the Conservative leadership race, Richard Murray considers what can be done to begin to fix the current crisis in the sector.

As integrated care systems become statutory bodies, Anna Charles and Richard Murray consider the early signs that will indicate how they are developing, and the risks they will need to avoid.

As The King’s Fund launches its new animation explaining how the health and care system works, Sarah Murphy explains how people and communities, at the heart of the health and care system, are also at the heart of our animation.

Loreen Chikwira explores how better listening, collaborative working with minority ethnic women and better support for link workers can improve how social prescribing supports migrant women.

How well is the government’s reform programme tackling the eight key problems in adult social care? Simon Bottery marks the government’s score card and finds it wanting.

Now the Health and Care Act has been passed, Richard Murray reflects on the negotiations that went down to the wire, what didn’t make it and what’s needed to ensure the reforms are successful.

The public has grasped what people who use social care already knew: it doesn’t provide all the support they need. Laura Schlepper, from Nuffield Trust, and Simon Bottery explore the data from the British Social Attitudes survey.

Oliver Standing, Director of Collective Voice, and colleagues from the Alliance Group, explore the opportunities offered by England’s new drugs strategy, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.

In a recent roundtable, local health leaders identified five relationships that need to be strengthened to successfully manage elective backlogs.

How has the Covid-19 pandemic and its effect on health services affected public perceptions of the NHS? The results of the 2021 British Social Attitudes survey reveal an unprecedented drop in public satisfaction with health services.

Despite no big announcements on NHS spending, the Spring Statement did contain some details for the health service to pay attention to. Siva Anandaciva outlines how inflation, the health and care levy and aims to improve efficiency will all have an impact.

Funding for local public health has been getting more complicated, making it harder for directors of public health to plan, and for transparency for anyone looking on, seeking to understand what is happening. David Buck looks at the different pieces of the jigsaw.

Sally Warren outlines the rationale behind the social care cap and explains why the government’s planned changes will have an unfair impact on those with lower assets.

Tackling poverty is core business, and the NHS can start by addressing low pay in its own workforce, as many other public services have.

Despite Covid-19 dominating the year, there were plenty of other health and care policy headlines in 2021. Siva Anandaciva takes a look back at the key moments of the past year.

Richard Murray has a sense of déjà vu as he writes his 2022 New Year blog. Covid-19 will bring challenges to implementing the many changes in store for the health and care system this year, but the biggest challenge is tackling the workforce shortage – a challenge the government has so far refused to face.

David Buck and Toby Lewis consider the opportunities of NHS England’s new ‘Core20plus5’ approach to tackling health inequalities, and reflect on how the NHS begins to adapt its role and work more strongly with others to tackle the root causes as well as symptoms.

The government’s White Paper has done little to dispel concerns that reform of adult social care is faltering, says Simon Bottery.

The NHS is facing the challenges of growing waiting lists, missed performance targets and a severe workforce shortage. How will public attitudes towards the health service change if the taxpayer-funded increase in health spending doesn’t result in improvements?