
Reimagining health: a framing paper
Think tank: Reform
Author(s): Sebastian Rees; Charlotte Pickles; Patrick King
September 21, 2022
This report from UK think tank Reform looks at how to transform our approach to health.
In its early years, our National Health Service proved visionary. It provided high-quality care to meet the dominant needs of the population it served: timely, universal access to episodic, acute treatment. However, the structures and institutions designed to meet the challenges of the post-war world are not equipped to deal with our current and future health challenges. We now find ourselves with a system that doesn’t work for patients, who too often struggle to access high-quality timely care; for medical staff, who feel disempowered, stressed, and burnt out; or for taxpayers, who foot an increasing bill for a service which is struggling to cope. Reform’s new programme of work on ‘Reimagining Health’ seeks to explore how to transform our approach to health. It will consider how we can move from a treatment-oriented model to one geared towards health creation, the changes necessary in healthcare to facilitate this, and how to build a fair and sustainable approach to funding. This framing paper sets out the case for change and identifies areas Reform wishes to explore in its research programme.