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Summary
The realistic outlook for health and care leaders is far from welcoming. It is unlikely that demand pressures will be alleviated by increases in funding or staffing. More positively, the NHS is committed to a new service model as set out in the Long Term Plan – i.e. new integrated care services and a redesigned acute and emergency sector – but the transition will itself be a challenge. In this environment, health leaders will benefit from access to all resources, from all sectors and both nationally and internationally.
Contracting between the public, private and third sectors in the UK is more common than is sometimes thought. In the UK, approaching half of the health and care budget is spent on non-NHS bodies of all kinds. Contracting is more common in health and care than in all public services on average.
NHS leaders and companies can look to partnerships, structured in the right way, to bring the following immediate advantages:
- Increased focus on core services. Outsourcing can free up management time to concentrate on key clinical challenges including elective recovery.
- Capacity and resilience. As in the example of PCR test centres, partnerships can allow managers to meet new challenges without imposing undue pressure on existing staff.
- Costs. Through improved performance, long-term partnerships can be a key means of containing costs in an inflationary environment.
- Capital. Given pressures on public funding, global companies can have faster access to capital.
- Innovation. Companies can draw on a range of experience from the UK and (in the case of global firms) other countries to help partners improve services.