CHPI: The first three years

Over the past three years the CHPI has published a number of major reports by high profile experts on the state of the health service following the Health and Social Care Act 2012. All of these reports have been covered in the mainstream press and have impacted significantly on the debate about the use of market mechanisms to deliver health and social care. The fact that the NHS in England is now moving away from a market‑based system to one based on integration and co‑operation is due in no small part to the critique of market based healthcare produced by the Centre and other academics and commentators.

But the financial challenge facing the NHS now threatens to undermine a comprehensive health service available to all. We need to critically analyse the changes that are being planned and examine what they mean for patient access to care, for transparency and accountability, and for the founding principles of the NHS. For this we need a stronger financial base. We will remain very low-cost compared with other think tanks, but we need to do more. Given what we have achieved with a minimal budget over the last three years we are confident that with a small team of researchers we can make an even bigger impact.

This publication includes a summary of our major reports, but the full range of reports, blogs and analyses published by the Centre can be found on our Reports page. In total the Centre has produced over 20 publications since it started work in June 2013, a significant level of output given our finances of less than £10,000 a year. To put this in context, our research budget is less than 1% of the budget available to the larger health policy think tanks.