How will the NHS operate in the future?
- 29 March 2017
- Posted in: Healthcare
With the NHS undergoing a serious crisis of funding and staffing, the last thing needed is more uncertainty. That is exactly what the NHS is facing with Brexit. It is also now over two years since the Five Year Forward View (5YFV) was published, laying out plans to transform how the NHS would deliver high quality, personalised care, whilst operating more efficiently to produce £22bn of savings. Now that the initial phase of the plan is well underway with initiatives and pilots in place, such as the new models of care, 7 day working, and integration programmes, the next stage is now here.
Every health and care system in England has been tasked with implementing a multi-year Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), a new approach to deliver the Five Year Forward View vision of better health outcomes, better patient care and sustainable transformation in service delivery. Plans are required to be locally defined and to help ensure that services are built based around the needs of local populations. Although STPs have faced strong criticism from local authority leaders and patient groups; the Royal College of Emergency Medicine as warned that STPs could have a catastrophic impact on emergency care, a recent report by the King’s Fund concluded that STPs offer the best chance of improving health and care services.
The Better Care Fund has been established to further the integration between health and social care providers through a pooled budget to provide better joined up care for residents. In addition to this support it has been mandated that every part of the country is to have a plan for integration between social care and the NHS by 2017, to be implemented by 2020.
The Vanguard Programme currently has 50 sites piloting the new models of working. The government has ambitious plans to have 50% of the country covered by these new models by 2020. To encourage adoption and uptake it is imperative that there is a process for sharing feedback and learning.
Implementing local plans and new models of care are taking place against a backdrop of unprecedented pressure in the health and care system. Ongoing surges in demand and tight NHS finances; the most recent NHS Improvement reports indicate that trusts in England have a record deficit of £2.45bn, mean the challenge to secure the future of the NHS is more testing and pertinent than ever before. The lack of a mention of further funding support in Philip Hammond’s Autumn statement has further stimulated grave concern as to the future financial state of the NHS.
Join us at The Future NHS Plans: Delivering Transformation and Sustainability conference where, without the aid of a crystal ball, we will endeavour to provide an insight as to how, through the transformational programme, the NHS can be sustainable and provide safe, quality and personalised care up to 2020 and beyond.
