NHS Productivity Commission Unlocking the NHS’s productivity potential
Improving NHS productivity is vital to improve the quality of services for patients, ensure the NHS is financially sustainable and provide value for money for taxpayers. After a decade of austerity and the COVID-19 pandemic, the NHS is struggling to improve productivity, which remains below pre-pandemic levels.
This is why the Health Foundation has established the NHS Productivity Commission. It aims to provide evidence and solutions to boost NHS productivity over the next decade and enhance people's quality of life – specifically, the number of healthy life years they get to enjoy.
The Commission will do this by drawing on lessons from the NHS, the wider economy and health systems in other countries.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted NHS productivity. While recent analysis has highlighted some signs of improvement, NHS productivity remains stubbornly below pre-pandemic levels. Addressing the effects of the pandemic is of course crucial, but the productivity challenge reaches far beyond these immediate pressures.
A health service that delivers high quality care requires sustained productivity improvements, with a focus on genuine, lasting productivity growth, not just short-term cost savings.
Currently, much of the work on NHS productivity is fragmented. Although productivity boosting interventions already exist (for example, the expansion of surgical hubs and the Getting It Right First Time programme), the government and national leaders need to create an environment that enables productivity growth across the whole of the health system.
Improved productivity offers numerous benefits that can positively impact the health system both in the short and long term.
- For patients, it can lead to reduced waiting times and faster access to the care they need, like quicker diagnoses or targeted treatments, leading to improvements in their overall experience.
- For the health care workforce, improving productivity means staff can spend less time on non-clinical tasks and focus more on patient-facing care, leading to improved job satisfaction and better quality of care.
In the long term, the goal is for improved productivity to help meet increases in demand more efficiently, reduce pressure on staff and facilities, and free up capacity to dedicate to innovation or respond to future shocks.
The Commission will look at productivity across hospital, primary, community and mental health care settings. It will make recommendations for how national policy ‘levers’ – such as targets, regulatory frameworks and incentives - can be applied to drive productivity growth.
Additionally, it will explore the role of technology in enabling health care providers to achieve sustained improvements in productivity.
Finally, the Commission will provide decision-makers with a clear, coherent package of reforms that will improve productivity and contribute to meeting patient needs, improving staff experience and securing the long-term sustainability of the NHS. The Commission will publish its final report in Autumn 2026.
The Commission is led by Anita Charlesworth CBE, Senior Economic Adviser at the Health Foundation, and Tera Allas CBE, a leading expert on economic growth, productivity and public policy.
They will oversee all activity, including authoring the final report and recommendations. Read more about the other Commission members and
expert advisors here.