Sign up with your email address to receive FREE newslettersRecent Media
Hospitals 'face funding squeeze'
Kate Devlin, The Telegraph, 11/12/2009
John Lewis checked out in NHS productivity drive
Alison Moore, HSJ, 03/12/2009
GP spending role debated
Steve Ford, HSJ, 26/11/2009
Pay GPs and hospital specialists to work together on PBC, says NHS Alliance
Tom Ireland, GP Newspaper, 25/11/2009
Recent Articles
Beyond practice based commissioning
Judith Smith & Julie Wood, HSJ, 25/11/2009
Wide angle needed on NHS efficiency
Judith Smith, Healthcare Finance, 10/11/2009
Using routine intelligence to target inspection of healthcare providers in England
M Bardsley, D J Spiegelhalter, I Blunt et al, BMJ Journal - Quality and Safety in Health Care, 24/05/2009
Get it together
Chris Ham, The Guardian, 01/04/2009
Recent Publications
Beyond Practice-based Commissioning: the local clinical partnership
Candles in the Dark
NHS Mutual: engaging staff and aligning incentives to achieve higher levels of performance
Health in a Cold Climate: Developing an Intelligent Response to the Financial Challenges Facing the NHS
Practice-based commissioning has been a cornerstone of the government’s health service reforms in England since it was introduced in 2005, but it has so far had limited success. With the future of PbC in the balance, the Nuffield Trust and NHS Alliance have published a joint report on how PBC can be developed as the NHS faces a period of financial constraint. The report considers how multi-specialty groups of clinicians – for example GPs as well as hospital-based specialists – could form new ‘Local Clinical Partnerships’ that take on responsibility for designing, delivering and commissioning local health services. They would be handed real budgets and would have responsibility for the health outcomes of their local communities.
View press release | View report
Current Project
New Frontiers in NHS Efficiency
The NHS is facing one of the most significant financial challenges in its history. NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson has said that the NHS must look to save £15–20 billion by 2014. To help the NHS respond to this challenge, we are launching a major new programme of research and policy analysis that will examine how the service can become more efficient as it enters a period of significant financial restraint. The findings will be published in a series of reports in spring 2010, culminating in a final report in summer 2010. We will also host a number of seminars to inform the programme.
Latest Blog
Integration: the past or the future?
Yes it will be painful, but the financial squeeze will be the most powerful prompt the NHS has had for the last decade to evolve, argues our Director Dr Jennifer Dixon. Evolution will be largely bottom-up, focused on patient-centred goals rather than DH-set implementation of central policies. It will also lead to diversity. The ingredients will include: putting clinicians at financial risk through holding budgets; person-based analysis of cost, quality and use; peer review and clinical leadership; and aligned incentives.
Latest News
NHS inevitably facing real terms cuts without significant increases in productivity
Following the Pre-Budget report the Government has outlined its vision for the future of the NHS over the next five years in NHS 2010-2015: from good to great. Responding to the report, our Director Dr Jennifer Dixon said the direction of travel is right but that the NHS will inevitably face real terms cuts in its budgets from 2011 onwards unless it delivers significant increases in productivity – the likes of which have not been achieved in the past.
Latest Download
Integrated Care: what are the key factors for success?
In the last of a series of four seminars Professor Ed Wagner, Director, The MacColl Institute, talked about the key ingredients of high quality integrated services and responded to a presentation from Katrina Percy, CEO Designate of Hampshire Community Health Care on their plans for delivering integrated care. The Integrated Care Seminar & Study Series aimed to learn about integration from high quality health organisations in the USA and to disseminate this learning within the NHS.
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The Nuffield Trust's mission is to promote independent analysis and informed debate on UK healthcare policy