08.02.17
The NHS estates challenge
Source: NHE Jan/Feb 17
Paul Fenton, national chairman of the Health Estates and Facilities Management Association (HefmA), explains why collaboration will be the single most important factor in achieving the objectives within the Carter programme and the sustainability and transformation plan (STP) process.
The £1.2bn target of productivity and efficiency savings for Estates and Facilities Management (EFM) services detailed within the Lord Carter productivity and efficiency programme will be a tough one to achieve. That, along with the emerging national STPs, means a clear focus on ‘doing something different’ in the years to come. Combine these two programmes with an NHS that has seen unprecedented levels of activity during 2016, and in the first few weeks of this year, and it gives a clear indication of the challenging balance to be had in meeting both the financial and quality targets whilst delivering a safe and effective service.
Historically, the EFM profession within the NHS has risen to the challenge of year-on-year cost improvement plans, but to deliver the additional efficiency savings up to 2020 requires a different approach that demands innovation, integration and collaboration. HefmA has been working with the Department of Health (DH) Estates and Facilities team since late 2015 and throughout 2016, and, together with IHEEM (Institute of Healthcare Engineering & Estate Management), was requested by the DH through a clear ‘Terms of Reference’ document to engage the EFM profession across all NHS trusts in delivering the productivity and efficiency programme.
This interesting, and some may say innovative, approach by the DH to directly engage the EFM profession, through HefmA and IHEEM, hands the challenge of delivering those efficiencies back to the profession. The estates and facilities benchmark ‘dashboards’ issued by the department, produced from a combination of ERIC (Estates Return Information Collection) and other data, clearly demonstrate to all 136 acute trusts their relative productivity and efficiency across their estates and facilities services. The dashboards, benchmarked against the Adjusted Treatment Cost (now the Weighted Activity Unit) and the emergence of the ‘Model Hospital Portal’, give a realistic indication of performance and it is with these benchmark tools that trusts have embarked upon their plans to deliver these efficiencies by 2020.
Throughout 2016 HefmA and IHEEM were proactive, delivering with the DH a number of workshops and seminars to launch the productivity and efficiency programme, share best practice and case studies between trusts and give help, support and advice to those with significant efficiency savings targets.
Collaboration and shared services
The National Council of HefmA firmly believes that collaboration will be the single most important factor in achieving the objectives within the Carter programme and the STP process. The EFM profession within the NHS must come together as never before, sharing best practice and networking at every level with every trust.
Some of these initiatives will see the EFM departments of trusts amalgamate to offer regional shared services, or potentially form joint venture companies with other public or private bodies to deliver estates and facilities services. Other trusts will seek to share professional and technical leads or collaborate in procurement processes for outsourcing of FM services to achieve greater ‘buying power’ within the marketplace. Collaboration is the ‘name of the game’. Acute trusts will need to work with other neighbouring acute, mental health and community trusts and colleagues within the EFM profession, as part of both the Carter programme and the STP process in achieving the required efficiencies. If we get it right, the patient will ultimately see the benefit through a more focused customer-centred delivery of both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ FM services delivered when required, where required, in the support of their care and recovery.
HefmA, and our partnering associations, are focused on the patient in everything we do. The estates and facilities profession will need to continue to deliver the core critical EFM services to ensure it supports clinical service delivery and provides a patient environment which is safe, efficient and effective.
Along the theme of collaboration, HefmA has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Hospital Caterers Association and the Association of Healthcare Cleaning Professionals to engage in a programme of joint events, training courses and seminars and to promote the estates and facilities profession and all that it delivers to every patient every day.
HefmA, working with its partnering associations, will continue to assist the DH, as requested, in delivering the Carter productivity and efficiency programme through the use of sharing best practice and case studies, verifying ERIC data, providing training events through the year and developing information for the Model Hospital Portal. The DH has itself taken a key innovative step in handing the challenge back to the estates and facilities profession through to 2020, and it is a challenge that HefmA is prepared for.
For more information
W: www.hefma.co.uk