Sign up with your email address to receive FREE newslettersRecent Media
Report says Welsh NHS falling behind England
Madeleine Brindley, Western Mail, 20/01/2010
Scots health service is damned as worst in UK
Brian Currie and Helen Puttick, Herald Scotland, 20/01/2010
Scotland sick man of the UK despite highest NHS spend
Christopher Mackie, The Scotsman, 20/01/2010
NHS in England 'more efficient than rest of UK'
Nick Triggle
, BBC News Online, 20/01/2010
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
Funding and Performance of Healthcare Systems in the Four Countries of the UK Before and After Devolution
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
Our unique analysis of the performance of the NHS across the four countries of the UK before and after devolution has found striking differences in performance with some countries spending more on health care and employing greater numbers of health staff but performing worse when it comes to a range of indicators, such as waiting times and crude productivity of staff. Our report compares NHS performance across the 10 English regions with the health services of the devolved countries – the first time such an analysis has been conducted.
View report | View summary briefing | View press release | Key slides
Predicting Risk in the UK
With health services in the UK facing significant financial challenges, it is vital that people identified as being at high risk of needing health care may be offered targeted, preventive care aimed at keeping them healthy and out of hospital. To do this health services need effective predictive risk modelling. Our summit in January examined the predictive models used in the four countries of the UK and considered future developments. View a narrated slide show of the highlights from the summit and download speaker presentations.
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 Download
In our latest podcast, Dr Jennifer Dixon discusses the performance of the NHS across the four countries of the UK before and after devolution following the publication of the Trust’s latest report. Dr Dixon discusses the striking differences in performance across indicators such as waiting times and crude productivity of staff. She also examines the possible reasons for the differences in performance that are more pronounced when the devolved nations are compared with certain regions of England.
Latest Press Release
We have now received official confirmation from the Office for National Statistics that an official figure obtained from the ONS using data provided by Scotland, which was used in our comparative study of UK health performance (published on 20 January), was incorrect. The inaccuracy for this figure resulted from the ONS statistics having been compiled on a different basis across the four nations. We would like to reiterate that this error was not the result of our analysis and research, which is conducted to the highest possible academic standards. We have amended this figure and provided updated graphs. Read our statement.
The Nuffield Trust's mission is to promote independent analysis and informed debate on UK healthcare policy