The plans, which each cover an average population of about 1.25 million, have been produced under extreme time pressure and in the absence of a legal basis for joint planning between the different organisations in the NHS and local government that are involved.

This note compares the main health policies in the 2017 election manifestos of the Conservative Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democratic Party.

This briefing note shows that only by injecting a substantial amount of public funds into the care system will social care become a service which enhances the lives and independence of our older people.

The financial assumptions underpinning the Government's plans to close the NHS's 30-billion-pound funding gap by 2020/21 are unrealistic and are likely to lead to a decline in the quality of and access to healthcare for patients. Subsequently there is a growing risk that that some vital services will collapse.

Closing A&E departments has led to a deterioration in the performance of those that remain in North West London. This analysis warns of the risk to patients if further A&Es are closed.

The assessment finds that the plans rest on implausible assumptions and lack credible implementation measures. It concludes that the scale of the planned reduction in hospital services implies rationing and risks the collapse of some services.

This report describes the role that privatisation has played in the decline of the provision and quality of adult social care. It outlines a number of reforms which could help reverse the decline in the sector.

Transforming Services Together (TST) is a five-year plan to radically reconfigure health services in the London boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest.

This analysis looks at:

1. Why is the STF not sufficient to eliminate the providers’ deficit in 2016/17?

2. What are the implications for providers who accept the funding, and for the NHS in general?

This report uses findings from the Care Quality Commission’s new inspection regime for private hospitals to show that there continue to be risks to patient safety associated with the distinctive nature of private hospitals in England, compared with the NHS. In addition, the lack of systematic collection and reporting of patient safety data raises questions about the adequacy of the CQC’s new approach to regulating private hospitals.

This report raises questions about the capacity of the NHS to handle the increasing outsourcing of its services to the private sector and its ability to ensure that services provided by the private sector under contract with the NHS are safe, effective and value for money.

This report analyses the financing structure of the new Private Finance 2 scheme and finds that it is likely to increase costs to the NHS. Restructuring the balance of debt and risk capital would increase the rate of return to private investors by 15% compared to the original Private Finance Initiative.

This report brings together what is known about patient safety in private hospitals. It offers new insights into the number of patient safety incidents in private hospitals, analyses the potential risks inherent in the way that these services operate, and makes recommendations to improve transparency in the private sector.

This analysis looks at how the concept of patient choice has worked in the NHS in recent years. It finds that the type of patient choice that contemporary health policy draws on almost exclusively is based on a flawed account of what choices actually mean for patients.

This analysis looks at the evidence showing that creating and maintaining markets in the NHS has incurred huge financial costs and significant ‘opportunity costs’ – money which could have spent upon patient care and clinical redesign.

This report finds that reforms made to the NHS following the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 have impacted upon its ability to deal effectively with a possible flu pandemic.

This report looks at how the market in social care services in England provides the best available example for policy makers of what happens to the quality of care and the terms and conditions of the care workforce when competitive pressures are used to bring about a reduction in the cost of care to the taxpayer. It calls for public debate and the development of informed mitigation strategies to prevent this happening in the new market in the NHS in England.

This analysis looks at four key arguments that have been made to justify the use of individual budgets. It focuses primarily on personal budgets in social care since this is the sector in which the evidence base is most mature, but also considers the existing or likely impacts of personal health budgets.

This analysis explores how the Health and Social Care Act 2012 has placed requirements on NHS commissioners to engage in both collaboration and competition.

This report warns that the introduction of greater use of for profit providers of healthcare services as a result of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act is likely to substantially increase the amount of healthcare fraud in the NHS. This will result in less money for patient care when funds are already scarce.