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. Young male delivery cyclist working part-time, riding through city streets with food backpack on.

    Raising the bar: Strengthening living standards while banning exploitative zero-hours contracts

    Labour’s manifesto committed to banning exploitative zero-hours contracts as part of sweeping upgrades to workers’ rights.
  2. The Bank of England is watched over by a statue of the Duke of Wellington seated on his horse

    Beyond headroom: Why we need a better fiscal framework to fix the UK’s long term problems

    There has been long-standing debate about the UK’s fiscal rules and fiscal framework.  
  3. Drax coal fired power plant in North Yorkshire, UK with coal stack and Biomass storage tanks at sunset

    Financing carbon capture, usage and storage: The case for extended producer responsibility

    The government has run out of road on funding infrastructure through energy bills.