The Nuffield Trust has today published its five-year strategic plan setting out how it will work to improve health care in the UK. The plan centres around a renewed focus on what policies mean on the ground and on bringing together policy-makers with frontline clinicians and managers.
The future of the NHS depends on what local leaders can achieve in the face of immense challenges.
Nigel Edwards
As ambitious pledges on quality and efficiency intensify pressure on the service and with the NHS facing the toughest financial squeeze for a generation, the Nuffield Trust will:
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Improve the evidence base that leads to better care for people in the UK through our research and analysis
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Use our independence to provide expert commentary, analysis and scrutiny of policy and practice
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Bring policy-makers and NHS staff together to raise issues and identify solutions
Work will focus on five key areas, selected for the opportunities to really contribute to solving problems in the coming years:quality of care: new models of health care delivery; workforce; older people and complex care; and providing independent scrutiny of government policies and the performance of the system.
In a blog accompanying the strategy, Nuffield Trust Chief Executive Nigel Edwards wrote that “the future of the NHS depends on what local leaders can achieve in the face of immense challenges”. In light of this, he explained that the Nuffield Trust “ will be more grounded in the practical implications of policy-making, working closely with NHS staff and policy-makers to identify solutions to the challenges facing the NHS”
Nigel Edwards wrote:
“These are pressing times for everybody who works in and around health and social care, and the service is clearly at a crossroads. We want to contribute to these debates and discussions, not just stand on the sidelines. My overriding priority for the next five years is to make that contribution happen, by supporting the staff, the policy-makers and the ideas which will make the real difference.