What is Consumer Needs Segmentation?

Consumer Needs Segmentation is the Strasys method for grouping a healthcare population by the intersection of four lenses: unmet needs and attitudes, actual service-usage behaviours, clinical acuity, and economic value. It is the foundation of every Strasys engagement. A typical deployment produces 8 to 17 named population segments, each with a quantified size, growth rate, persona, service utilisation pattern, and cost profile. The segments then drive the design of new models of care and new business models for delivery.

How is this different from clinical risk stratification, national benchmarking dashboards, or commercial population health tools?

These tools answer different questions and are often complementary. Clinical risk-stratification tools stratify individuals for care management in primary care. National benchmarking dashboards compare one system's performance against others. Commercial demographic segmentation products segment populations for marketing. None of these categories are designed to drive strategic service redesign at a board or ICB level. A 2024 systematic review in BMJ Health & Care Informatics (Oddy et al.) reinforces this distinction, finding that risk-stratification tools predict utilisation well but rarely translate into improved outcomes when deployed to guide population health management in unselected cohorts. Consumer Needs Segmentation is purpose-built to answer a different question: what is the real shape of demand in this population, and what care models and business models would best meet it?

Why does segmentation matter for a board that already has performance data?

Performance data tells you what activity you did last month. Segmentation tells you the underlying population that generated that activity, and whether your current operating model is the right one to meet their needs. Without it, every transformation decision, from estate configuration to workforce redesign to financial sustainability, is being made against an implicit model of demand that has never been made explicit. Boards that skip segmentation typically optimise the wrong things.

How long does a segmentation analysis take?

An initial segmentation for a single trust typically takes 8 to 12 weeks. This includes data acquisition, the four-lens analysis, segment definition, persona development, and translation into strategic implications. Larger systems (multi-site groups or ICBs) can take 12 to 20 weeks. The output is a set of deliverables a board can act on, not a report that sits on a shelf.

How does this work for an ICB, specialist trust, or multi-site system, and how do you reconcile local segmentations?

Consumer Needs Segmentation has been deployed across acute trusts, specialist children's hospitals, integrated care systems, multi-site trust groups, and community and mental health providers. At ICB and multi-site group level, the analysis produces a single system-level segmentation that is then reconciled against any existing local segmentations held by individual trusts. ICS-level reconciliation is the same method applied at a larger scale. The approach is designed to resolve three common mismatches: different segment names meaning the same thing, the same segment name meaning different things, and local segments that are missing at system scale. The output is a coherent system view of demand that each constituent trust can use for its own planning while the ICB uses it for commissioning, estate, and workforce decisions. Typical timeline is 12 to 20 weeks.

Are named references available?

Yes. The Alder Hey case study on this page is named with the Trust's permission. Further named references from CEOs, CFOs, and board chairs at NHS trusts and specialist hospitals where we have deployed Consumer Needs Segmentation are available on request under appropriate non-disclosure. We will typically arrange a direct conversation with a comparable client before the contracting stage of any engagement.

How does segmentation connect to the rest of the Strasys Decision Intelligence Platform?

Consumer Needs Segmentation is Step 01 of the SMASH Decision Continuum and the foundation of every downstream product. Workforce Decision Intelligence inherits the segments to design capacity. Clinical Service Review uses them to structure redesign. Strasys Value Index uses them to interpret value. Board Intelligence uses them to frame governance decisions. Strasys Maternity Index and Consultant Workforce Optimisation apply the same logic to their respective populations. Skip the segmentation step and every downstream decision is made against an implicit model of demand that has never been tested.

Step 01 of the SMASH Decision Continuum

Every decision that matters in healthcare starts here.

Before you redesign the estate, reshape the workforce, or restructure the operating model, you need to know who your population actually is, what they actually need, and how they actually behave.

Consumer Needs Segmentation is where we start. Because every good decision that follows depends on it.

See How It Works Speak to Our Team

What The Segmentation Surfaces

50%

More end-of-life activity per patient at one site in a multi-site group

£3,500

Excess cost per patient, invisible without a segment lens

90%

Of system cost is driven by roughly half of patients

The DI Platform Solution

Consumer Needs Segmentation.

Redesign your operating model around the population you actually serve, not the one your org chart assumes.

Consumer Needs Segmentation is a 10-to-14 week DI Platform deployment that gives NHS boards, trusts, and integrated care systems a structural understanding of their population: who they actually serve, how those people use services, what it costs, and what care and business models would best meet their needs. It is the starting point for every Strasys engagement, because the NHS plans backwards. National policy dictates services, services dictate workforce, and by the time the population is considered the operating model has already been set. This inverts that sequence.

What You Get

Four deliverables your board can act on.

Every Consumer Needs Segmentation engagement produces these four artefacts. They are the working basis from which the next twenty years of strategic decisions are made.

Segmented population with named personas

Eight to seventeen segments per population, each with a named persona, size, growth trajectory, utilisation pattern, cost profile, and geographic distribution.

Six business models architecture

Your population translated into six distinct business models, three foundational and three treatment, each with its own staffing, infrastructure, funding, and incentives.

Economic sizing by segment

Cost to serve and surplus per patient made explicit. Trapped value identified. Typically 10–15% recurrent savings at system scale.

Board-ready blueprint

A blueprint the board can act on.

Impact Story

Alder Hey reimagines care for young people.

Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust faced a system under structural pressure: a waiting list of over 23,000 growing by 4% a month, a 65% annual rise in CAMHS referrals, a 75% increase in ASD diagnoses over twelve months. Incremental improvement could not close the gap. The board commissioned a radical approach.

The Intervention

Consumer Needs Segmentation, followed by a year of design.

Strasys ran a population-led analysis using the four-lens method. The output: 10 distinct consumer segments for children and young people, reorganised into 4 inter-related models of care, each with its own needs and delivery logic.

Get me well

Fast, effective care for time-limited diagnoses

Make my care more personal

Holistic care for complex or long-term needs

Improve my life chances

Partnership with the system for community outcomes

Bring me the future today

Innovation and knowledge capital applied to children and young people

The Outcome

A 2030 vision the board committed to.

"We didn't want a cookie-cutter approach. Strasys helped us use population data insights to truly understand the needs of children and young people and ensure we brought all our resources and expertise to bear to tackle those needs and reshape our future."

John Grinnell

Chief Executive, Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust

What Changed, Clinically and Operationally

Services Reconfigured

Clinical services restructured around the four models of care, with dedicated leadership per model replacing the traditional specialty-based structure.

Pathways Redesigned

Community-based pathways established for the Make My Care More Personal segments, reducing reliance on acute outpatient models for long-term conditions.

Governance Rewritten

Executive roles and board governance rebuilt to match the four care models, with accountability triangulated across strategy, finance, and clinical outcomes.

Economic Case Established

Integrated financial headroom built into the change plan, with the board commitment backed by a quantified economic case rather than aspirational targets.

Further named references available on request under appropriate NDAs.

How We Segment

Four lenses, one population, actionable segments.

Most segmentation tools pick one lens. Some look at clinical acuity, others at demographics, others at behavioural activity. Consumer Needs Segmentation merges all four lenses into a single analysis, because a segment defined by only one of them is not actionable for service redesign.

Needs

What patients actually want. Attitudes, motivations, decisive buying criteria, trust and control preferences.

Behaviours

How patients actually use services. Utilisation patterns, access pathways, frequency, and points of contact across settings.

Acuity

Clinical risk stratification. Health state, severity, progression, and future burden of care.

Value

Cost to serve, surplus or deficit per patient, and the economic opportunity each segment represents. Makes transformation economics explicit.

The output: segments you can act on.

Each segment arrives with a named persona, a quantified size, a growth trajectory, a service utilisation pattern, a cost profile, a geographic distribution, and a set of decisive buying criteria. This is the working basis from which the next twenty years of strategic decisions can be made.

8 to 17

Segments per population, typical

8–12 weeks

Single trust, from kick-off to board-ready output. 12–20 weeks at ICB or multi-site group scale.

The Strasys Method

From patient to business model. The whole chain of transformation.

Consumer Needs Segmentation sits at the start of a causal sequence that ends in a redesigned operating model. Every Strasys engagement follows this chain, and every decision along the way is anchored in what came before it.

Patient

The individual and their family.

Segment

Groups of patients with shared needs, behaviours, and value profile.

Model of Care

The clinical response. Maternity & Newborn, Treat & Recover, End of Life, and others.

Business Model

How the care is organised, staffed, and funded. Six distinct business models.

The Strasys Transformation Sequence

Segmentation In Context

Different tools for different questions.

Several segmentation approaches are used across the NHS. Each is designed to answer a different question, and each is best-in-class for its intended purpose. Consumer Needs Segmentation is purpose-built for one question: what is the real shape of demand in this population, and what care models and business models would best meet it?

A 2024 BMJ Health & Care Informatics systematic review of twenty-eight risk-stratification tools found that only a third of real-world deployments delivered measurable benefit, and several increased admissions or mortality. Identifying high-risk individuals, the authors concluded, does not on its own translate into better service delivery. Consumer Needs Segmentation asks a different question: what do different parts of the population actually need, and what service and business model would meet those needs.

The Question You're Asking	Strasys Consumer Needs Segmentation Needs × Behaviours × Acuity × Value	Population Health Management / Risk Stratification Individual-level case-finding	National Benchmarking System performance dashboards	Outcome Commissioning Domain-based frameworks
Does it reflect my population?	Yes. Segments are built from local data, locally defined.	No. National groupings.	No. National norms.	Partial. Regionally adapted.
Does it capture how people actually use services?	Yes, explicitly. Behaviour is one of the four core lenses.	Limited. Clinical focus only.	Minimal. Health states only.	Partial.
Does it make the economics visible?	Yes. Cost to serve and value per segment is explicit.	Indirect. Via utilisation.	No. Descriptive only.	No. Outcome-framed.
Can my board redesign services with it?	Yes. Segments map directly to models of care and business models.	No. Designed for care management.	No. Comparison, not redesign.	Partial. Commissioning only.
What financial outcome does each typically evidence?	10–15% recurrent savings identified at system scale. Delivered through structural redesign of the business model, sustained through the new operating rhythm.	Reduced admissions within high-risk cohorts.	No direct financial claim.	Dependent on contract design.
So what question is it built for?	Redesigning the operating model around real population need.	Stratifying individuals for care management.	System performance against benchmarks.	Commissioning against outcome domains.

We recognise that peer-reviewed impact evidence for population segmentation at system scale, ours included, remains limited. We welcome the systematic validation that the field still needs.

Questions we're asked.

: Consumer Needs Segmentation is the Strasys method for grouping a healthcare population by the intersection of four lenses: unmet needs and attitudes, actual service-usage behaviours, clinical acuity, and economic value. It is the foundation of every Strasys engagement. A typical deployment produces 8 to 17 named population segments, each with a quantified size, growth rate, persona, service utilisation pattern, and cost profile. The segments then drive the design of new models of care and new business models for delivery.
: These tools answer different questions and are often complementary. Clinical risk-stratification tools stratify individuals for care management in primary care. National benchmarking dashboards compare one system’s performance against others. Commercial demographic segmentation products segment populations for marketing. None of these categories are designed to drive strategic service redesign at a board or ICB level. A 2024 systematic review in BMJ Health & Care Informatics (Oddy et al.) reinforces this distinction, finding that risk-stratification tools predict utilisation well but rarely translate into improved outcomes when deployed to guide population health management in unselected cohorts. Consumer Needs Segmentation is purpose-built to answer a different question: what is the real shape of demand in this population, and what care models and business models would best meet it?
: Performance data tells you what activity you did last month. Segmentation tells you the underlying population that generated that activity, and whether your current operating model is the right one to meet their needs. Without it, every transformation decision, from estate configuration to workforce redesign to financial sustainability, is being made against an implicit model of demand that has never been made explicit. Boards that skip segmentation typically optimise the wrong things.
: An initial segmentation for a single trust typically takes 8 to 12 weeks. This includes data acquisition, the four-lens analysis, segment definition, persona development, and translation into strategic implications. Larger systems (multi-site groups or ICBs) can take 12 to 20 weeks. The output is a set of deliverables a board can act on, not a report that sits on a shelf.
: Consumer Needs Segmentation has been deployed across acute trusts, specialist children’s hospitals, integrated care systems, multi-site trust groups, and community and mental health providers. At ICB and multi-site group level, the analysis produces a single system-level segmentation that is then reconciled against any existing local segmentations held by individual trusts. ICS-level reconciliation is the same method applied at a larger scale. The approach is designed to resolve three common mismatches: different segment names meaning the same thing, the same segment name meaning different things, and local segments that are missing at system scale. The output is a coherent system view of demand that each constituent trust can use for its own planning while the ICB uses it for commissioning, estate, and workforce decisions. Typical timeline is 12 to 20 weeks.
: Yes. The Alder Hey case study on this page is named with the Trust’s permission. Further named references from CEOs, CFOs, and board chairs at NHS trusts and specialist hospitals where we have deployed Consumer Needs Segmentation are available on request under appropriate non-disclosure. We will typically arrange a direct conversation with a comparable client before the contracting stage of any engagement.
: Consumer Needs Segmentation is Step 01 of the SMASH Decision Continuum and the foundation of every downstream product. Workforce Decision Intelligence inherits the segments to design capacity. Clinical Service Review uses them to structure redesign. Strasys Value Index uses them to interpret value. Board Intelligence uses them to frame governance decisions. Strasys Maternity Index and Consultant Workforce Optimisation apply the same logic to their respective populations. Skip the segmentation step and every downstream decision is made against an implicit model of demand that has never been tested.

Start where every good decision starts.

A conversation about your population, your transformation agenda, and what the segmentation could reveal. We bring recent examples from trusts like yours.

Book a Conversation

By Challenge

By Role