Responding to the letter from NHS England and NHS Improvement earlier this week in which the second phase of the NHS response to Covid-19 was outlined, the Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, Niall Dickson urges that local clinicians and managers should be allowed to lead the redesign of services, “freed of any bureaucracy that could get in the way.”
Niall cautions that this certainly does not mean a “return to normal overnight.” He outlines: “Managing the virus on a day-to-day basis will be a harsh reality facing our health and care services and local communities for many months to come. The NHS and social care will need to work in unprecedented ways to bring back services, and in many instances this will mean delivering a ‘new normal’ in this different and demanding context.
“Perhaps above all what we now need is a joined-up approach, responding to local needs and circumstances - firing up hospital treatment will have a major impact on community services, general practice and social care. More than ever, this pandemic has shown the interdependency between these services.”
Local solutions are needed and the healthcare system should also embrace the positives to come out of this crisis when moving forwards.
“Today’s guidance rightly talks about the need to ‘lock-in’ the positive changes that we have seen in recent weeks. The pandemic has unleashed innovation across the service at breath-taking speed. We do not want to go back to the NHS as it was – in spite of all the huge challenges, this is a great opportunity to reset the way we deliver health and care across the UK.”
HEFMA has already scheduled a one-day Forum for September, with the theme ‘Adjusting to the new normal’. The event is to be held at the DoubleTree Milton Keynes on September 22. More detail will be announced about this event in due course.
