2016 annual report and financial statements

This report summarises our work during 2016 and sets out our plans for 2017. It also contains our financial statements for 2016.

The Health Foundation has a broad mission – to improve the health and health care of people living in the UK. As an independent foundation we are in the privileged position of being able to step back and try to understand why problems exist and what might help to solve them in the short, medium and longer term.

This annual report shows good progress in achieving our aims in 2016, both at the level of front-line care through to national policy. During 2016, we also laid the groundwork for many of the initiatives that will get underway in 2017. Our achievements in 2016 are due to the hard work and commitment of staff, governors and partners and we look forward to making more progress in 2017.

2016 was the second year of our strategic plan for 2015–18, which sets three aims: to improve health service delivery, make health policymaking more effective, and help people in the UK to become healthier. We are working to achieve these aims through:

• testing and spreading innovations by giving grants and practical support to front-line teams
• building skills and knowledge to improve the quality of care – for example, through developing leaders who can use quality improvement techniques at the front line, and building the skills needed to design, model and measure the impact of health care policies
• developing and sharing evidence on what works and why, becoming an expert centre for evaluation of interventions by 2018, monitoring the quality of health care, and researching the impact of policy reforms and how the right mix of policies can improve population health.