UK’s testing policy makes daily number of reported covid cases a very good proxy for hospitalisations. Using various time series methods, here my 𝟕-𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐚𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 to hospitals. In total, UK has 141k hospital beds

Covid-19 infections have potentially 0.6% death probability (best guess, range 0.3%-0.9%) typically 2½ weeks later. Forecasting death counts ahead, this relationship allowed us to estimate 13% (uncertainty range 9%-23%) of English people infected with virus by now CCHLE@CJBS

Exciting experience to teach my first course on Operations Management to 18 local managers at @Cambridge_ICE as part of a new business certificate offered by the Univeristy. Learning the tricks of the trade to make online lectures entertaining!🤠

Comedians’ view on pitfalls in 𝗚𝗣 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 youtu.be/z-jMH19ryMA 🙃 Large qualitative study agrees: “video-consulting shows great promise for straightforward problems, […] but leads to a reduction in information giving” gponline.com/face-to-face-g…

Teaching scoring models to EMBAs last week, I left students so confused that they demanded I re-do the whole lecture! So *𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈*😱 – learning teaching the hard way. On the bright side, students were interested in the topic: youtube.com/watch?v=xf1fnA… (21 min)

VALUE-BASED HEALTHCARE rests on 5 pillars: Hub-and-spoke network, new technology (eg telehealth), shifting routine tasks to cheaper staff, cost-conscious culture, HC for all. Great book explaining origin of approach in India and adaptions in US ssir.org/books/excerpts… #vbhc

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝘂𝗱𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 (Lindblom 1959) is indeed a well-established public policy approach. Though one may wonder whether HM Government has taken this approach too far! The Daily Telegraph cartoon from 29 July remains a good end-of-year summary

… 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗴𝗼 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻! The Daily Telegraph cartoon from 1 August 2020 is again the news of today

"If healthcare were a cake, hospitals would only be icing & cherries” (drawing: Ben Jackson (he/him) Mark Purvis) Public health efforts alone explain 25 of the 30yrs rise in life expectancy since 1900. Looking at the Operations Management literature, I thought this to be the other way around!

Just started my 6-month Experiential Fellowship at Public Health England – exciting times! Wider determinants of health that influence a population’s well-being is the overarching theme of public health. Here a good 6min summary from my PHE induction youtube.com/watch?v=8PH4JY…

NHS Digital should learn from usemydata.org on making the case for sharing patient-level GPDPR data. This patient-led pressure group knows their stuff with weekly newsletters, patient panels and webinars. A great initiative, and I wish them all possible success!

𝗣𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 is often seen as tick-box exercise entertaining ‘professional patients’. The sad fact remains: no evidence of patient involvement having a positive impact on services exists pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23252574/ Is it a management or a measuring problem?

The STAIRCASE PROBLEM is a big operational challenge in reducing health inequalities. If patients slip anywhere in the health and benefits system, access to healthcare is lost. “I, Daniel Blake” (Palm d’Or 2016) provides a great cinematic illustration imdb.com/title/tt516819…

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. It's tough to bring this all together to a paper

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗛𝗦 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗴𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻! Sorting out the primary care backlog (nobody tried to quantity yet!), will “supply” more diagnostic patients, more outpatients and then more elective surgeries. Such supply effects are commonly forgotten in NHSE planning.

RCGP reveals only every second GP is happy to share patient-level data with NHS England to improve care coordination and planning. We must explain better how "their" primary care data helps channel huge sums of £££ to serve their patients effectively! understandingpatientdata.org.uk/news/new-resea…

𝐎𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥? GP work days officially last 8:20h, but now close to 12h. Intense days lead to poorer care, mistakes, lower job satisfaction. This forces GPs part-time, sacrificing pay and continuity of care. An operationally efficient system?! bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the…

A politician would have my vote if they say “I trust NHS staff on operations management.” Healthcare is such a complex system that catchy promises of removing management layers (Truss) or fining for missed appointments (Sunak) are often just self-defeating …gersneteletterpodcasts.buzzsprout.com/1931280/110983…

UK's Marmot Review on 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 has now a follow-up on what employers can do. The impact of firm’s 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 decisions on health inequality is a big societal problem, but academically underexplored instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-repo…

Job opening: Assistant Professor in Operations Management at UCL Business School for Health. Low teaching load (approx. half a course); strong institutional healthcare links; flexibility to publish in MS/OR/JOM/MSOM/POMS or in medical journals. ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/se…