Sustainable healthcare: Practical steps to build back better in the English NHS

Article

Good healthcare is a vital foundation for the future of our country – including the health of its economy and of its democracy.

Given health outcomes were not on a positive trajectory even before the pandemic, it is clear policy must aim higher than simple recovery. Delivering on better health as a people’s priority must mean building back better.

To support this, the Institute for Public Policy Research and Future Health Research have come together to identify immediate learnings from the pandemic. Our ambition has been to understand areas of consensus, where sustainability can be better embedded.

Brilliant care is still possible within our NHS, and the search should be for policies that can help the NHS both universalise and sustain the best care now, for all, in a period of intense global health uncertainty. Our analysis in this report has identified five key areas where sustainability can be strengthened:

  1. thinking differently about investment
  2. narrowing inequalities
  3. ending the postcode innovation lottery
  4. connecting the health service through data and integration
  5. building a sustainable workforce.

Related items

  1. An older man with a walking stick is sitting on a sofa having his temperature taken with a thermometer in his ear by a female nurse in uniform

    This time must be different: Overcoming barriers to social care reform

    Adult social care services across England are struggling to keep up with increased demand, let alone improve. But failure is not an option.
  2. Queen Square Bus Station on Hood Street in Liverpool city centre

    En route to renewal: Delivering better, greener buses

    Good buses drive a strong economy, healthy environment and thriving society. 
  3. Townhouses beside the railway on the viaduct with a running train in Durham, UK

    On track to prosperity: Great Northern Rail

    It’s time the North saw real change for better transport, delivering prosperity and better lives: a long-term plan for Great Northern Rail