The Health Foundation have released a new report called The bigger picture: Learning from two decades of changing NHS care in England.

The report looks back over the last two decades at the care and treatment provided by the NHS and compares it to the changing health needs of the population.

The report highlights 6 key lessons for the future: 

1. There is a need for clearer population health goals to help steer future decision-making and choices. 
2. There is a need for a better understanding of the contribution different services make to population health goals, and what this means for the future composition of NHS services. 
3. Systematic national projections of future trends in illness and disease (‘morbidity’) are needed to inform national and local NHS planning.
4. There needs to be more sophisticated models of future activity and health outcomes, including drivers of growth, to aid future planning. 
5. Technology plays a major role in shaping both demand for care (eg a new treatment makes it possible to address an unmet need) and the way care is supplied (eg drug therapies replacing complex surgery) 
6. Shifts in activity take time and policymakers and health care leaders need to be realistic about what can be achieved. 

You can read the full report here, on the Health Foundation’s website.