About the Project
IFF has a long interest in health and healthcare, evidenced in our partnership with the Glasgow Centre for Population Health and in other projects recorded on these health praxis pages.
Our work has from the start asked some fundamental questions about where the next great advance in population health is likely to come from - starting with 'The Fifth Wave: searching for health in Scotland' published in 2003, and now reflected in other projects including the AfterNow inquiry arising from the culture and health programme curated by University of Glasgow in which we have participated.
We have also used the three horizons approach to address specific issues in the healthcare system - how to redesign the plane whilst flying it. Our work with NHS Fife designing a number of initiatives to address the annual winter pressures in demand for health and social care is an example - described here.
Although we find great enthusiasm for these approaches amongst practitioners, they gain little attention in the policy debate - which is dominated by the need to maintain the NHS in the face of growing demand and ever-escalating costs.
Hence we have published a short pamphlet, written by IFF member Dr Margaret Hannah, on the causes and consequences of the inexorable rise in spending on healthcare – Costing an Arm and a Leg (available for download below). It argues that current approaches – essentially based on a combination of financial management and demand management – will not be adequate to sustain the National Health Service given deeper systemic drivers that are by no means confined to the UK. But unless we face up to this fact, support for alternative approaches will remain inadequate. It is a call for the ostrich to raise its head from the sand.
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Last updated: 20 Jun 2010 |
Documents for download
Click on the documents below to download them to your hard disk.
 Costing an Arm and a Leg
A short pamphlet on the causes and consequences of the inexorable rise in spending on healthcare. It argues that current approaches – essentially based on a combination of financial management and demand management – will not be adequate to sustain the UK's National Health Service given deeper systemic drivers that are by no means confined to the UK.
Date: 20 Jun 2010 Size: 379kB
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