What were we trying to do?

In this project we investigated how and why NHS organisations affected local economic and social outcomes in the short-term, and how this could improve population health in the medium to long-term.  

 

The NHS is the fifth largest employer in the world, and so directly influences the working conditions and prospects of over 1.3 million people. The money spent on pay and attracting new staff to work for the NHS can make a massive difference to people and communities. We knew that the NHS is often one of the largest employers in certain communities, making it critically important, not only in terms of providing high quality care but also affecting the lives of people through its ability to provide employment and job security.

 

We wanted to identify what worked, in what circumstance, for whom, and why, to allow wider adoption of anchor-related activity across the NHS.   

 

Why was it important?

The NHS represents a substantial part of economic activity in most areas of the country by being a large employer and providing a source of local economic activity: an ‘anchor institution’.

 

NHS England & NHS Improvement (NHSEI) explored how providers and other NHS organisations could act more actively as anchors, using their economic power to reduce socioeconomic and health inequalities.

 

There was little evidence on how providers and other NHS organisations could achieve these aims.

  

 

How did we do it?

We analysed relationships between staff costs and other related anchor activities and explored variations in the strengths of these relationships by the factors detailed below: 

 

1. Examined NHS spending and the impact of this on local communities by looking at employment-rates, wage levels, health inequalities and so on. This part of our study also looked at whether these links were stronger in certain communities, such as deprived areas, coastal towns, regions of England, towns whose economy was not as strong as other areas, etc. We were particularly interested in what happened to the economic fortunes of communities when local hospitals opened or closed.

 

2. Conducted in-depth interviews with people within 3-4 NHS Organisations to try and understand and explain the results found in the first piece of work. We established what prevented and/or enabled some NHS Organisations to do better for their local communities than others.

 

3. Combined the information from the first two pieces of work to create a model to help NHS Organisations think about what might happen to local jobs and health in the future.

 

 

Findings

Findings will be available in due course.

 

 

The research team:

• Dr Luke Munford (Principle investigator)
• Prof. Matt Sutton (Co-applicant)
• Paul Wilson (Co-applicant)
• Prof. Clare Bambra (Co-applicant)
• Prof. John Wildman (Co-applicant)
• Dr Jo Wildman (Co-applicant)
• Dr Heather Brown (Co-applicant)
• Prof. Kate Picket (Co-applicant)
• Prof. Ben Barr (Co-applicant)
• Dr John Ford (Co-applicant)
• Prof. Lindsay Forbes (Co-applicant)
• Prof. Paula Lorgelly (Co-applicant) 
• Hannah Davies (Collaborator)
• Michael Wood (Collaborator)
• Dr. Baslam Ahmad (Collaborator)
• Tom Lloyd Goodwin (Collaborator)

 

Who are we working with?

• ARC North East and North Cumbria 
• ARC Yorkshire and Humber
• ARC North West Coast
• ARC East of England
• ARC Kent, Surrey, and Sussex
• ARC North Thames
• Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership
• Greater Manchester Combined Authority
• NHS Confederation
• Centre for Local Economic Strategies
• The Northern Health Science Alliance

 

More information

 

 

 

Programme Manager
Gill Rizzello
gill.rizzello@manchester.ac.uk