About us

Background

The National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Systems and Commissioning (HSSC), formerly PRUComm, is a team of academics from The University of Manchester, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and University of Kent. We started working together as a unit in 2011, and have many years of experience researching how health and social care services are planned and carried out in the UK.

Manchester university LSHTM logo University of Kent

We study how the NHS and social care services are organised, how decisions are made about what services to provide, how money is spent, and how those in charge keep an eye on what is happening. We want to find out what the impact of any changes might be on people receiving services and on the staff providing them.

In the past we have carried out large programmes of research, looking at whether changes to the way the NHS is organised have made it easier or harder to deliver good services. Most recently, new organisations called Integrated Care Systems have been created. They bring together NHS organisations (such as hospitals), local councils and charities to work together to plan and deliver services for local people. Over the next five years we will carry out research studies to find out how the new Systems are working, what things they are finding difficult and what help they might need from the government or from the NHS.

PRU HSSC is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and is one of 20 NIHR Policy Research Units.

  • Our work focuses on:

    • Advising decision-makers on what research is telling us about the best ways to plan and organise services.
    • Finding the best ways to conduct this research.
    • Quickly answering policymakers' urgent research questions.
    • Sharing our findings in an easy-to-understand way with policymakers, health workers, the public and other researchers.
    • Bringing in additional funds for more research where needed.

  • We work with policymakers to choose a number of research projects for PRU HSSC. Our team has extensive experience in different ways of conducting research, including using the statistics about services that the NHS produces and talking to people about what they are doing and what problems they are having. Each project will use the best methods to address the specific questions to be answered. This might include interviewing people in health service organisations or watching meetings. It could also involve using statistical methods to analyse large data sets.

    Two expert Advisors have joined our Management Team at PRU HSSC. One is a member of the public, and one is an NHS manager, and they will help us to develop our overall strategy. Other public contributors are also involved in each research project by joining Advisory Groups for each projects, advising us on our plans, analysis, interpretations, explanations and communications.

    We are always looking for opportunities to collaborate with the other Policy Research Units, each focusing on a different area.

  • Our research findings will be shared with the policymakers we are working with and will be published as articles in academic journals and presented at conferences for academics and those working in health and care services. We will also write blogs and briefings for NHS managers, policymakers and members of Parliament. Our public contributors will help us produce summaries of our findings that are accessible to the general public