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. The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, River Thames and Westminster Bridge

    Taxing choices: Taking the public’s temperature ahead of the budget

    The stakes for a government are rarely higher than at a budget. Every chancellor has dealt with this differently. Ken Clarke would draft his budget speech with cigars and whisky, Gordon Brown pored over every word in what officials called…
  2. Scottish parliament building at Holyrood and Calton Hill, Edinburgh

    Great expectations: Rejuvenating the national debate in Scotland

    Fresh IPPR Scotland polling shows that politicians must raise their game if next year’s election is a to be serious debate about the challenges facing Scotland and potential solutions. 
  3. A Black man in a bright orange high vis jacket and hard hat stands in the middle of a road holding a sign that says 'STOP - WORKS'

    Unfinished business: Redressing inequality in British policy and Black lives

    As conversations about race and equality continue to evolve, Black History Month remains a powerful invitation to pause, reflect, and recommit to progress.