As we set out our strategy for the next five years, health and care services and public services in the UK are under enormous pressures, from changes within health care, local and global shortages of workforce and other external factors such as public sector austerity, and the uncertainty caused by the UK’s exit from the European Union. Furthermore, during the course of 2020, all of these issues have been eclipsed by the huge burden that the Covid-19 pandemic has placed on health services – and this is likely to remain the case for the medium term at least.
The type of work we do is challenged by increasing scepticism and a reaction against facts, evidence and research. In this context, the Nuffield Trust has a tremendous opportunity. Standing independent both of the NHS and of politics, funded largely by its own endowment, and small enough to respond quickly to the volatile political and policy environment, we can produce incisive commentary and research with three main aims:
- To influence policy and practice through generating and synthesising information on health and social care to facilitate both better policy and better practice.
- To challenge and support those involved in planning and delivering healthcare to think more creatively and innovatively about how to adapt and redesign services to meet changing patient needs;
- To provide information on the evidence, statistics, facts and research which politicians and policymakers use in their interventions in the health and care system in the UK.
We seek to be respected and highly-regarded by our main audiences; to remain separate from but expert in the NHS and social care; and above all to use our independence, highly skilled staff and unique position to be a force for good in improving the health and social care of the UK population.