Service redesign should be tested as rigorously as new treatments, NHS chief says

Changes in service delivery should be subjected to the same rigorous testing as new treatments undergo, NHS England’s chief executive, Simon Stevens, has argued.

Speaking at the NHS Confederation’s annual conference in Liverpool on Wednesday 4 June, Stevens said that the NHS “should be rigorously pro-research” and suggested that such an approach could enable the NHS to become a world leader in health service innovation.

The NHS had a poor record of evaluating service changes, he told delegates. The service now needed to “accelerate the redesign of care delivery” through “some well controlled experimentation.” He explained, …