Thought leadership

Here are five key challenges that the NHS capital regime now face:
1. Capital budgets: The pandemic has rocked capital budgets and what we think capital should be targeting. Lack of availability to funding is frustrating an opportunity for a generational change in the way health services are delivered. There is hope things will become clearer when the Autumn Statement is announced, however, competing pressure on the public purse and political ideologies may leave the public sector disappointed and looking for innovative ways to support front-line services.
2. Unfulfilled promises: The Prime Minister's pledge for “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-leadership-for-construction-of-40-new-hospitals">40 new hospitals</a>” created a perceived “haves and have nots” economy. Only eight of these hospitals have a real green light with sufficient funding. The rest are still competing for a future golden ticket but there is a lack of programme wide direction or targets and their seed funding is running dry.

3. Backlog of maintenance liabilities: £4.6m of which is considered significant and has risen by 34% in just one year. Simply keeping the lights on or the buildings watertight is a challenge for many trusts and capital rationing creates stark executive-level choices that bring the estate up the Board agenda. However, the estate must compete against increasing service demands and rising costs of interventions, limited allocation increases, and few means to create new income.
4. Virtual versus face-to-face: how will the balance play out and what will asset configuration look like? Improvements in the quality and quantity of community facilities arising from the anticipated Cavell programme will take a decade to emerge, and that is only after structural accounting and financial aspects have been resolved. The current localised ICS transformation, with the proposed changes in capital and operational management, presents another pause to navigate - delaying the adoption of smarter more integrated working across the wider public sector. 
5. Meeting net zero carbon targets: Competing for grant funding for capital equipment updates is not the problem but net zero specifications add a price tag to new build projects and changing operational practices.

So how can a system like this build back better, with the right quality, and in time to satisfy the political pressure upon it? 
It is wrong to think that building back better is building back more quickly. Any expectation of ribbon-cutting before the next election should be managed downward. Better is longer-term and getting it right so that the generations to come to inherit a system with supporting high-quality assets that have the flexibility to deliver front-line and support services. Only when this is achieved will there be a lasting and positive societal, economic and environmental impact. 
Building back better does not always mean building new. At an asset level, investment in the right refurbishments, keeping what is good, and adapting can create more bang for the buck. It should not stop with the assets that support our public services, it needs to help build more robust and fit-for-purpose relationships between service providers for more user-centric outcomes. Locality-specific ICSs need to be able to tackle local challenges and issues, whether from national trends or local nuances. Local communities, local stakeholders, and local services providers need to find a way to build robust and sustainable locality-based solutions to target investment to meet their population health needs. The “system” needs to allow localities the ability to do that, so whilst it will want governance and probity overlaid to local change, it should not accept a cookie-cutter approach to a UK-wide patchwork of differing needs. However, localities are not necessarily experts, agents, or facilitators of change, so the system should provide means to access the capabilities and expertise to allow the future to be shaped through the overarching maze of governance. The development of internal skills and professionalism married to access to external support with a collective track record of supporting and delivering change is vital. The system’s role is to remove the blockers and set the framework for successful consideration and delivery of better outcomes, with the acceptance that different systems may have different approaches to similar challenges. 
However, the biggest blocker sits at the feet of the system. No amount of clever partnership structuring or joint and collaborative working or commercialisation of asset base or realising of value from the surplus estate will solve the challenges facing the healthcare system we hold dear. The country can build back better, but locality leaders need the financial resource to do so. Political sloganeering is great to win hearts, but as the public sector is expected to deliver on the political promises, the public sector must have the certainty that the money is there to develop and deliver.

Delivering healthier outcomes

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How can we build back better?

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Howells—Studio

Lexica

The NHS has been at the front line of the Covid-19 pandemic, treating those that need it most. It has highlighted the need for better, more flexible estates.

The NHS has been at the front line of the Covid-19 pandemic, treating those that need it most. It has highlighted the need for better, more flexible…

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