Hospital Reconfiguration: an ippr briefing

Article

The new Chief Executive of the NHS, David Nicholson, has signalled a wave of reconfigurations of hospital services. The ippr provides a question and answer briefing to explain this story.

The new Chief Executive of the NHS, David Nicholson, has signalled a wave of reconfigurations of hospital services. The ippr provides a question and answer briefing to explain this story.

Our hospitals need to change and ippr research suggests that around one in four general hospitals will be seriously affected. For too long, politicians and senior NHS managers have been unwilling to have this debate with the public.

This should not just be about short-term cost-cutting. Bringing our health service up to world-class standards will mean closing some hospital units such as A&E departments in order to provide safer, higher quality care in more specialist centres, and providing more routine care closer to people's homes.

Related items

  1. A longer-term tax strategy for Scotland: what needs to change?

    Tax is a polarising issue. People hold very strong opinions on the matter. Often these strong opinions are, to put it mildly, not supported by the available evidence. And, frustratingly, the available evidence is not always as complete as…

  2. Joined up thinking: Seven tests for the integrated national transport strategy

    The UK government is producing England’s first integrated national transport strategy. In this blog, we set out IPPR’s seven tests to judge if the strategy seizes the opportunity to create a fairer, greener and healthier transport system…
  3. A wealthy man sits on a stack of coins while an older woman and a less wealthy man stand below him next to much smaller stacks of coins

    Earning vs owning: Rescuing opportunity in the asset economy

    Life chances are increasingly determined by what you inherit, not what you do. But what can we do about it?