INSIGHT 2020 – Week 1 Our decision making context in 2020

 Our festival journey began with the Strategy Unit team setting the scene on the importance of analytics, evaluation and evidence in addressing the current challenges facing health and care and supporting better decision-making. 

This was followed by two perspectives from our keynote speakers. Ben Goldacre described how open approaches could revolutionise health data science in the UK and Andi Orlowski explored “Dangerous analytics…and how local analysts can save you!” 

Speakers: Ben Goldacre and Andi Orlowski (Director, The Health Economics Unit) 

Social care services had to change rapidly in the face of the challenge of COVID-19. At the same time, the preferences and choices of those services changed. The market for care provision was also heavily impacted. This panel discussion considered what had changed; what had been learned so far; what should be kept and built on; what the future held; and what that all meant for integrated working. 

Speakers: Professor Robin Miller (Head of Department Social Work and Social Care, University of Birmingham) and Natasha Curry (Acting Deputy Director of Policy, Nuffield Trust); Dr Ossie Stuart (Diversity and equality consultant and user of social care services); David Watts (Director of Adult Services, City of Wolverhampton Council) 

A thought-provoking session about different approaches to involving people in decisions about health services. It included interactive exercises that demonstrated first-hand what different research approaches can add and examples of where these approaches have worked in the NHS and other sectors. Attendees were encouraged to think about the policy challenges that they faced and how they could genuinely improve decisions through meaningful involvement of their populations. 

Speakers: Michelle Mackie and Kate Duxbury (Research Directors, Ipsos MORI) 

From the outset of COVID-19, the analytical collaboration has undertaken a programme of work to help make sense of emerging evidence and analysis, and to provide useful information for the NHS in planning its way forward. During this panel discussion, we heard from the participants about what has perhaps surprised them in their work to date, and what they now think are the big questions going forward that need to be addressed through analysis. 

Speakers: Peter Spilsbury (Director, The Strategy Unit), Charles Tallack (Assistant Director for the REAL Centre, The Health Foundation), Sarah Scobie (Deputy Director of Research, Nuffield Trust) and Steven Wyatt (The Strategy Unit)