Health Management and Policy Alert

Chronic pain in adults 2017

Public Health England - 

This report explores the responses to questions on chronic pain in the 2017 Health Survey for England. It sets out the overall prevalence of chronic pain amongst the general population as well as identifying differences between sub-groups. It examines the site and severity of the chronic pain for those who are experiencing pain, as well as the impact on their mental health. It finishes with an analysis of the use of specialist pain services.

• Report
• More detail

Clinically led review of urgent and emergency care standards

NHS England and NHS Improvement - 

The NHS National Medical Director was asked to review the current NHS access standards to ensure they measure what matters most to patients and clinically. In December 2020, the recommendations from the clinically-led review of NHS access standards for urgent and emergency care were published for consultation alongside the strategy for transforming urgent and emergency care provision. This document summarises the responses to the consultation and next steps.

• Report
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A new deal for surgery

Royal College of Surgeons of England - 

This report highlights the challenges that exist on access to NHS surgical services in England due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and provides recommendations for recovery. These include asking the government to support adoption of the ‘surgical hub’ model across England for appropriate specialties, to help reduce elective waiting times and ensure surgical patients can be treated safely. The report also asks the government to adopt longer-term aims of increasing the number of hospital beds and doctors to reach the OECD average.

• Report
• Press release

Global medicine spending and usage trends : outlook to 2025

IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science -
The future level of global spending on medicines has implications for health care systems and policymakers across developed and emerging economies, and these issues are even more important in light of the global Covid-19 pandemic. This report finds medicine spending growth will continue to be driven by traditional factors including patent expiries, launches of new medicines as well as changing volume demand, particularly in pharmerging and lower income countries. Please note that free registration is required to access this report.

• Report

Genome UK: 2021 to 2022 implementation plan

Department of Health and Social Care -
Published in 2020, Genome UK: the future of health care set out a vision to create the most advanced genomic health care system in the world to deliver better health care at lower cost. Following collaboration with key partners across the genomics community, priority actions for 2021 to 2022 have been set out in the implementation plan to progress key commitments made in Genome UK.

• Report
• Department of Health and Social Care - publications

What happened to English NHS hospital activity during the Covid-19 pandemic?

Institute for Fiscal Studies -
This briefing uses administrative hospital data from across the NHS in England to describe how the use of inpatient (elective and emergency) and outpatient hospital care in 2020 compared with that in the previous year. It shows how overall levels of care changed in the period after the start of the pandemic in March until the end of December 2020 and examines how changes in activity varied across regions and clinical specialties. It also looks at how these patterns differ across patient age, ethnicity and local area deprivation.

• Brieifing
• Institute for Fiscal Studies - publications

LSE–Lancet Commission on the future of the NHS: re-laying the foundations for an equitable and efficient health and care service after Covid-19

London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) - 

In 2018, to mark the 70th anniversary of the UK National Health the ‘LSE–Lancet Commission on the future of the NHS’ was established by the Lancet and London School of Economics to independently evaluate the NHS and its role in health in the UK. Reporting after three years, the Commission describes how although the NHS is internationally held up as a leading example of universal health care, the health of the UK population lags behind that of other high-income countries. Their report makes seven core recommendations, setting out a long-term vision for the NHS which re-lays the foundations for a better, fairer health and care service.

• Report
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• Press release

Devolved public services: the NHS, schools and social care in the four nations

Institute for Government - 

Since their creation in 1999, the devolved governments have chosen to fund and run public services in very different ways. While the way they also choose to compile data is a real obstacle to comparison, this report reveals the extent to which public service performance has diverged across the UK from 1999 to the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. All the devolved nations spend more than England but all three have higher rates of treatable mortality – deaths that could be prevented through timely and effective health care interventions – and by 2018 all three had lower maths and science results.

• Report
• Press release

Productivity of the English National Health Service: 2018/19 update

Centre for Health Economics -
This report updates the Centre for Health Economics’ time-series of NHS productivity growth for the period 2017/18 to 2018/19. NHS productivity growth is measured by comparing the growth in outputs produced by the NHS to the growth in inputs used to produce them. NHS outputs include all the activities undertaken for NHS patients wherever they are treated in England. It also accounts for changes in the quality of care provided to those patients. NHS inputs include the number of doctors, nurses and support staff providing care, the equipment and clinical supplies used, and the facilities of hospitals and other premises where care is provided.

• Report
• Centre for Health Economics - publications

NHS activity tracker: April 2021

NHS Providers - 
This report analyses the latest NHS activity figures across a range of services and sets out the trends in each clinical area. It highlights the scale of the backlogs caused by the ongoing pandemic and argues that multi-year financial support is required to help support the NHS to recover the backlogs.

• Report