Resources

Welcome to The Bevan Briefing’s resource bank – a collection of NHS policy docs, international insights, and digital health links which I’ll be updating as I go.

NHS & UK Policy Documents

Curated long-reads, consultation papers, funding frameworks, and strategy docs.

Explainers

Helpful explainers which I come back to time and again.

What is the NHS?

NHS Funding

DHSC annual report and accounts: 2023 to 2024

How the Department of Health and Social Care has funded its activities and used its resources during the financial year 2023 to 2024.

GOV.UKDepartment of Health and Social Care

Revenue

NHS England » Allocations

NHS England is responsible for determining allocations of financial resources to integrated care boards (ICBs). Total annual budgets given to ICBs cover the majority of NHS spending. The allocations process uses a statistical formula to make geographic distribution fair and objective, so that it more clearly reflects local healthcare need and helps to reduce health […]

NHS EnglandNHS England

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/PRN01601-technical-guide-to-allocation-formulae-and-convergence-for-2025-to-2026-revenue-allocations.pdf

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/nhs-allocations-infographics-v3-23-24.pdf

Capital

NHS England » Capital guidance 2025/26

NHS capital 2024 Autumn Spending Review and allocations beyond 2025/26 The 2024 Autumn Spending Review provided the NHS with a 1-year capital settlement covering 2025/26. We are providing systems with allocations or indicative allocations that cover as many of the capital funding streams available in the year as possible, in parallel with the release of […]

NHS EnglandNHS England

Tarriff

NHS England » 2025/26 NHS Payment Scheme

NHS England » 2025/26 NHS Payment Scheme

NHS EnglandNHS England

Global Health Insights

Insights from non-UK health economies and global reports

Tools & Templates

Stuff I use to figure things out - some of these are government resources, some are things that individuals have pulled together (thank you)

Academic papers and Real World Evidence

I mean...... this one is pretty self explanatory. You might need a log in to access some of these though.

Spreading and scaling up innovation and improvement

Disseminating innovation across the healthcare system is challenging but potentially achievable through different logics: mechanistic, ecological, and social, say Trisha Greenhalgh and Chrysanthi Papoutsi ### Key messages The general practitioner in the surgery, the nurse manager on the ward, and the policy maker in the boardroom would be forgiven for losing track of all the new technologies, care pathways, and service models that could potentially improve the quality, safety, or efficiency of care. Yet we know that innovations rarely achieve widespread uptake even when there is robust evidence of their benefits (and especially when such evidence is absent or contested).1 The NHS Long Term Plan points out that every approach prioritised in the plan is already happening somewhere in the NHS but has not yet been widely adopted.2 There are common sense reasons why spreading an innovation across an entire health system is hard. Achieving any change takes work, and it usually also involves—in various combinations—spending money, diverting staff from their daily work, shifting deeply held cultural or professional norms, and taking risks. Simplistic metaphors (“blueprint,” “pipeline,” “multiplier”) aside, there is no simple or universally replicable way of implementing change at scale in a complex system. A technology or pathway that works smoothly in setting A will operate awkwardly (or not at …

The BMJGreenhalgh T, Papoutsi C.

The JAMA Forum - Population Health Management: Saving Lives and Saving Money? Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH¹

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2740704

Beyond “implementation”: digital health innovation and service design - James Shaw et al

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-018-0059-8.pdf

Is digital health care more equitable? The framing of health inequalities within England's digital health policy 2010–2017 Emma Rich, Andy Miah, Sarah Lewis

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9566.12980

Machine learning for real-time aggregated prediction of hospital admission for emergency patients - npj Digital Medicine

npj Digital Medicine - Machine learning for real-time aggregated prediction of hospital admission for emergency patients

NatureZella King

Books

I'm trying to be Bezos-less so I'd try looking for these at either https://uk.bookshop.org/ for new or https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb for second hand.

From the co-founders of GDS this book is an interesting take on how GDS did what it needed to do and gave a behind the curtain account on their challenges. This is going to be even more prescient given the retro flavour of some of the health policies at play at the moment (FTs, SHA's by any other name and the return of Milburn)

Digital Transformation at Scale: Why The Strategy is Delivery a book by Greenway Andrew.

This book is for people worrying about their sinking ship. Based on experience, it is a guide for navigating the blockers, buzzwords and bloody-mindedness that doom any analogue organisation trapped into thinking that while the internet has changed the world, it won’t change their world.Companies that grew up on the web have changed our expectations of the services we rely on. We demand simplicity, speed and low cost. Organizations founded before the Internet aren’t keeping up - despite spending millions on IT, marketing and ‘innovation’.This revised, expanded second edition of Digital Transformation at Scale is a guide to building a digital institution. It explains how a growing band of reformers in businesses and governments around the world have helped their organizations pivot to this new way of working, and what lessons others can learn from their experience.It is based on the authors’ experience designing and helping to deliver the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS). The GDS was a new institution made responsible for the digital transformation of government, designing public services for the Internet era. It snipped £4 billion off the government’s technology bill, opened up public sector contracts to thousands of new suppliers, and delivered online services so good that citizens chose to use them over the offline alternatives, without a big marketing campaign. Other countries and companies noticed, with the GDS model now being copied around the world.

Bookshop UKGreenway Andrew

Next from Lou Downe is a really helpful and unbelievably visually pleasing book on how to make services for people which actually work. A lot of the principles in here can be applied to in person and clinical pathways so even if your role is in offline services, there's still a lot to be had from this book.

Good Services: How to Design Services That Work a book by Louise Downe.

Service design is a rapidly growing area of interest in design and business management. There are a lot of books on how to get started, but this is the first book that describes what a ‘good’ service is and how to design one. This book lays out the essential principles for building services that work well for users. Demystifying what we mean by a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ service and describing the common elements within all services that mean they either work for users or don’t.A practical book for practitioners and non-practitioners alike interested in better service delivery, this book is the definitive new guide to designing services that work for users.

Bookshop UKLouise Downe

Not to be confused with the Leeds United and Scotland captain, Gary McAllister has written a pretty comprehensive (if opinionated) guide on the ins and outs of digital in the NHS. It's not totally impartial and I disagree on some areas but I don't think you'd be looking here if you weren't after opinion.

An Introduction to Digital Healthcare in the NHS: Second Edition

Browse our massive collection of over 2 million used books. World of Books is one of the largest online sellers of second-hand books. Free UK delivery.

Gary McAllisterMcallister Gary

Despite the title which made me eye-roll, this is a pretty good read for people wanting to understand the political decisions which shape the NHS policy behind the scenes. From understanding the role of medics in how the primary and secondary care contracts were (and still are) developed, how locations for new hospitals are chosen to more recent developments such as the role of relentless pursuit of FT status caused Mid Staffs and the role of the SoS in that (ahem). I listened to this on audiobook on several trips to Leeds and back and found myself still buying a paper copy and setting to it with a highlighter afterwards.

Fighting for Life: The Twelve Battles that Made Our NHS, and the Struggle for Its Future a book by Isabel Hardman.

From the author of Why We Get the Wrong Politicians, a gripping, provocative exploration of the NHS, told through the most critical moments in its 75-year history’The book the NHS has always deserved’ Andrew Marr’Funny, intelligent and so beautifully written . . . a much-needed book’ Chris van Tulleken’Brilliant’ Adam Kay________________Since its foundation in 1948, the NHS has come to define our national identity; it even topped the “what makes Britain great” poll in 2022. It has made history (and the headlines) again and again - from cutting edge discoveries like the first ‘test tube baby’, to its heroic response to the Coronavirus crisis. But the NHS has also become a battleground for some of the fiercest political contests of our time, perceived either as a national treasure, or as a lumbering piece of state machinery in need of renovation.In Fighting for Life, bestselling journalist Isabel Hardman cuts through the sentimentality and sloganeering on all sides of the political spectrum. Packed with gripping stories from the people at the beating heart of this venerated institution - its nurses, its doctors, its patients and the politicians who decide its fate - this is the essential book for understanding our NHS, and who we are as a nation.

Bookshop UKIsabel Hardman

Podcasts

Series or individual episodes which I've particularly enjoyed.

Not that I'm biased, but you can catch me on episode #102 (July 23 2022)...

Slightly sporadic in terms of release schedule - not one for a regular commute but always on point with policy analysis and they have a great set of top shelf guests.

Another excellent think tank podcast is this one from The Kings Fund - I particularly enjoyed their election briefings and imagine they'll have something to say when to 10YP eventually emerges...

On a more UK product focused angle is this one with Dr James Somauroo which has an interesting array of guest. I did find myself swearing at the one with Ali Parsa recently IYKYK (it's almost 2 hours, so plenty of time for profanities).

Newsletters

Unashamed plug for other people - some of these are paid for.

Cowper's Cut - The inimitable Andy Cowper has a paid for weekly email. You may have read this when he was writing for HSJ but he's now gone solo and, despite having been at this for over 20 years, I always learn something. Even if it's a very funny way of inferring that someone is infact quite daft. https://www.healthpolicyinsight.com/cowpers-cut/

Public Digital - The newsletter from the co-founders of GDS (see books above) is really excellent. It's monthly and has a really great global round-up as well as being a regular drumbeat of their achievements and case studies. Smart people doing smart things. https://public.digital/pd-insights/our-newsletter

Healthtech Pigeon - The brains at SOMX have a great roundup of news stories as well as conferences, events and a jobs board. Part opinion, part directory and always with excellent visuals. https://www.healthtechpigeon.com/

Out of Pocket - US based Nikhil Krishnan has an excellent tongue-in-cheek newsletter. Be warned there's some paid for content on there to have your wits about you for but it's generally pretty balanced. For those trying to get your head around the US system there's also some course material on there too (paid for).https://www.outofpocket.health/

What the Health - Run by Emily Casey in Australia, What the Health is a meme filled canter through the best of Australasian health tech innovations. With a set of paid for and application cohorts, it seems like an interesting way of getting market coaching although I can't speak from experience on this one. https://www.whatthehealth.io/