Health Management and Policy Alert

Business plan 2024/25

NHS Resolution -  

This plan outlines NHS Resolution's financial and service delivery goals for the third and final year of its strategic plan, Advise, resolve and learn: our strategy to 2025. The business plan reflects NHS Resolution’s four strategic priorities to resolve issues in a fair and timely manner; use data to improve healthcare; improve maternity outcomes; and invest in staff and systems.

• Business plan
• More detail

Forgotten generation: shaping better services for children and young people

NHS Providers - 

This report, based based on NHS Providers' survey of trust leaders during April and May 2024, explores the issues in providing children and young people's services, and how trusts are working to address them.

• Report
• Press release

NHS secondary care: an overview

NHS Providers - 

This explainer details the size and structure of NHS trusts and foundation trusts, their performance and activity, and how they are perceived by the public and their regulators.

• Explainer
• More detail

Our vision for improving patient experience of diagnosis

National Voices - 

The process of getting a diagnosis is becoming increasingly challenging, with February 2024 statistics showing that the proportion of patients waiting six weeks or more for diagnostic tests is 20.8%. This report from National Voices (a coalition of 200 health and social care charities in England) sets out nine key recommendations they believe will significantly improve people’s experiences of diagnosis and health and care more widely.

• Report
• Press release

How can the next government improve hospital waits in England?

The Health Foundation - 

This long read looks at recent trends in waits for elective care (routine, non-urgent, hospital treatment) and urgent and emergency care (ambulance response times and waiting times in A&E departments). It also examines some of the main factors that affect how long people wait for these services and how these may be affected by lack of access to other health and care services. It concludes by identifying priorities for the next government.

• Long read

Providers deliver: achieving value for money

NHS Providers -
This report shows how hospitals, mental health, community and ambulance services are finding new ways to provide better care and value for money. It says that the efforts of trusts must be matched by a commitment from government for capital investment to modernise buildings, equipment and technology in order to unlock greater productivity gains. It finds that barriers to progress on productivity include the impact of staff exhaustion and burnout, the disruptive impact of industrial action and the growing numbers of patients with complex conditions needing more resources or staff time to care for them.

• Report
• NHS Providers - news

Productivity in the NHS and health care sector

The King's Fund -
Productivity is one way people measure the performance of a sector – it compares the growth in the quantity of outputs to the growth in the quantity of inputs. This explainer looks at what productivity is and how different bodies measure health care productivity in England in different ways.

• The King's Fund - publications

More money, more choice, more of the private sector: can the next government repeat the feat of the 2000s and cut waiting times?

The Health Foundation - 
NHS waiting times are a central issue of the 2024 election campaign. Proposed solutions – more money, more staff, more use of the independent sector and strengthening patient choice – are mostly shared between the two main parties. More money, more choice and more private sector provision helped reduce median waiting times (under old measures) from 12 weeks to 5 weeks in the decade following the 1997 election. This long read analyses the data to assess whether this is possible again.

• The Health Foundation - publications

NHS productivity

NHS England - 

This paper from Julian Kelly, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Finance Officer at NHS England, discusses the effect the pandemic has had on NHS productivity with details of NHS England’s estimates for the drivers of the loss of productivity observed. The paper discusses the emerging plan to improve productivity in the coming years.

• Paper
• More detail

Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care: progress update and next steps

NHS England -
The Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care was published in January 2023. Setting out a two year action plan from April 2023, it is backed by a £1 billion improvement package and £200 million ambulance fund, with the ambition of reducing the time people spend in A&E or waiting for ambulances to arrive. This guidance highlights the progress made over 2023/24 in delivering the actions set out in the delivery plan.

• Guidance
• Letter
• NHS England - publications