Covid And The Healthcare Backlog – What’s Next?

Friday, April 30, 2021

The NHS has achieved extraordinary things during the Covid-19 pandemic and to roll out the vaccine programme so successfully. Managing the aftermath, including the massive backlog of consultations and treatments, means that the challenge is far from over.

Within health services, there’s a significant but less told story of how the adoption of digital tools and ways of working has accelerated over the last twelve months. And how important this has been in managing the pandemic. There’s also no doubt that digital tools and information sharing between healthcare settings will become even more significant in dealing with the healthcare backlog and the lasting effects of ‘long Covid.’

It’s expected that innovative approaches to healthcare will involve more services being delivered locally through enhanced GP surgeries and medical centres. This means that primary, community and out-of-hospital care will need digitally-enabled ways of working and seamless ways of sharing patient data. From hospital consultants to care homes to pharmacies – digital technologies allow the creation of a single team around the patient.

The Future Healthcare Estate

The other big challenge will be to adapt the healthcare estate to deliver services in the way envisaged. Creating enhanced, flexible, high quality and sustainable healthcare facilities at scale also calls for innovative thinking and modern, digitally-enabled ways of working.

Doing everything possible to eliminate steps and time from the journey between specifying the requirements and handing over a finished building, ready to deliver enhanced services, will be critical. This calls for an equally clear message about the future of healthcare construction: that it will be innovative, collaborative, and will maximise the use of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC).

In some ways the same sense of urgency is called for. While maintaining proper competition and rigour, the procurement process must be streamlined and longer-term in its vision. Collaborative approaches will give contractors the confidence to innovate and invest in the technology and skills needed to build at the required pace.

There is a lot to be done quickly. If we can apply the clear sense of purpose and openness to new ways of working that responded to an unprecedented crisis, we can emerge with a modern healthcare estate that can handle the backlog and meet the demands of the 21st Century.