The NHS has moved from an overall net deficit to a net surplus within a year, according to the figures released by the government in June 2007 (Department of Health 2007), reversing a three year trend towards increasingly large gross deficits. The government argues that these latest figures show that ...
Attempts to give more choice to users of public sector services has been a major theme of the Labour government's public sector modernisation programme. Policies have been developed in health care, education and social housing that aim to give users a greater choice of publicly or privately owned providers, and ...
In December 2006, the Department of Health issued its second 'operating framework', The NHS in England: The operating framework for 2007/08, which provides a set of rules and guidance for NHS organisations in England for the year ahead. Aimed primarily at managers and clinical staff, the operating framework for 2007/8 ...
'Free choice' - allowing patients being referred for non-urgent treatment to choose a hospital anywhere in England - begins in the NHS in England in April 2008. It is another milestone in a policy that aims, among other things, to use consumer pressure to improve the quality of hospital services ...
This briefing sets out the demand and funding pressures facing social care across the UK. It then looks in detail at the impact of these pressures in England and the barriers to funding reform. and To mark the BBC's coverage of the NHS's 70th birthday in July 2018, The King's Fund, the Health Foundation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Nuffield Trust have been asked by the BBC to look at five key topics, covering the relative strengths and weaknesses of the health service, ...
This new report, written with The Health Foundation, pulls together new financial modelling, public perceptions work and policy analysis to identify the problems with adult social care in England and outline options for its reform. It concludes that reforming the current system will be expensive, but that if reform is ...
This report brings together the findings and conclusions from three strands of research that addressed different aspects of the main research topic, which is the identification of successful strategies for sustaining reductions in waiting times. They are: identifying successful strategies for sustaining reductions in waiting times; the impact of waiting ...
This review assesses how far the investment and accompanying reforms since 1997 have transformed the NHS in England into a high-performing health system. The review focuses on England because health policy has now diverged from that in the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It has drawn on ...
In 2008 the NHS celebrates its 60th birthday. This briefing looks at key health care issues over the last 60 years and forward to its 120th birthday. [Introduction]