The NHS isn’t broken it just needs an MOT and a tune up says Real World Health’s Scott Fletcher.
Ahead of October’s budget here’s three areas he thinks the government should be putting money into to get the NHS back on track:
1. Management
There’s this perception that anyone who’s not contributing at the front line of the NHS is surplus to requirements.
There’s been a culture of stripping out middle management in particular, but the data shows that the NHS has far fewer managers than other international health systems – all this does is place more of the admin burden on clinical staff.
The NHS needs to rejig spending towards increasing headcount at managerial level and to attract strong candidates with the right skill set.
It’s not a case of needing more doctors, more nurses, more surgeons. They don’t.
They just need to use them smarter and that’s where investing in managerial decision making, process and function structure within the organisation will help.
2. Data tools
The NHS is getting used to electronic health records (EHRs) and more and more systems are being adopted that make it easier to record information about healthcare interactions with greater accuracy.
Now we have this information, it’s time to start using it.
We are sitting on a goldmine of data that can be interrogated to identify trends and anomalies, to reveal insights into disease pathologies, to case find, to flag health inequalities, to monitor interventions, to track adverse events, the list goes on.
We can use this information to tweak and redefine our processes and pathways to optimise the patient experience and improve outcomes of care.
But to do this to the best effect we need to invest in data tools capable of analysing information from a wide range of organisations that work towards our better health including local authorities, schools, primary and secondary care.
We need tools that can harmonise and crunch all that data. This will show us the levers to pull and where the system needs adjusting to optimise and tune up the NHS so it becomes a more efficient, higher functioning operation.
3. Think operational not capital spending
Typically tech investment has fallen under capital spending, a major focus for the NHS that also includes building infrastructure, purchasing equipment, and maintaining physical assets.
However, in the new era of cloud computing and digital services, we need to shift this thinking and consider technology as an operational investment.
Cloud computing allows NHS organisations to reduce the need for expensive on-premise servers and IT infrastructure, enabling them to access advanced computing power, storage, and applications as a service, often with lower upfront costs and far more agility to keep up with new developments.
This shift enables the NHS to focus more on service delivery, data accessibility, and innovation in patient care rather than on heavy capital investments in physical assets, which can quickly become obsolete.
Consequently, capital spending is becoming less central to NHS modernisation efforts compared to investing in adaptable, cloud-based solutions that can be scaled in response to changing needs.
