Blog

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.

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.

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.

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?

Partnership working can be transformative – if it works well. Here we share two techniques, observed as part of the Healthy Communities Together programme, that can help in forming healthy partnerships.

Angela Fell, Director of Northern Heart and Soul in Wigan, outlines why we should move beyond person-centred services to a community-centred approach in order to transform people's health and wellbeing.

The government’s ambitious new data strategy for health and social care has been published. But, says Pritesh Mistry, the strategy could suffer the same fate as previous data initiatives, unless the government focuses on gaining people’s trust and ensuring transparency.

How can councils work with communities to shape a local response to Covid-19 that meets local needs? Jason Strelitz, Director of Public Health for Newham, and Anne Bowers, Programme Lead for Newham Covid-19 Health Champions, outline what has been happening in Newham.

How will the Covid-19 vaccination programme achieve the uptake it hopes for? Dan Wellings says understanding and involving local communities, their needs and concerns has to be part of the answer.

How can NHS services use their facilities to better support social prescribing? Ben Collins highlights what’s needed to make NHS sites more welcoming spaces for individuals and communities.

Digital tools and services are increasingly being used in health and care, but what happens to all the data that is collected, who should have access to it and who decides? Pritesh Mistry outlines the value of trust and transparency in these complex agreements

What should a new government strategy on obesity look like? David Buck outlines what is needed to ensure this attempt is successful.

A resilient health and care system is about more than national action. Sally Warren shares a vision for building local resilience that would allow the health and care system to respond effectively to future crises.

Much media attention has been paid to how acute services are tackling Covid-19, but what about community health and care services? Anna Charles considers the impact of the outbreak on these often overlooked services and the role they might play in the next phase of the response.

Dan Wellings and John Appleby consider how staff satisfaction, patient experience and recent funding announcements may have influenced public satisfaction with the NHS.

New standards aim to improve urgent care in the community, but how easily can they be delivered? Anna Charles considers how workforce, social care and the pace of change might pose challenges for implementing these welcome plans.

Is the NHS a good place to work? With the NHS and its workforce emerging as a key battleground in the run up to the general election, Rachel Worsley of Ipsos MORI looks at the data on the public’s views on how the NHS performs as an employer.

Julia Thrift, Projects Director for the Town & Country Planning Association, explores the relationship between town planning and population health, and how the lessons of NHS England’s Healthy New Towns programme should inform future developments to ensure people are able healthier lives and reduce health inequalities.

Following Labour’s announcement that it will abolish prescription charges, Nicholas Timmins weighs up the costs and implications, and questions whether it should be considered a priority.

NHS administrative processes and staff have an important role to play in delivering care. But what happens when administration is poor? What impact can it have on patient experience? As we begin our new project on NHS administration, Lillie Wenzel shares the findings from our early work.