IHEEM WALES REGIONAL CONFERENCE 2023
Integrated care pathways The Health and Social Care Integration and Rebalancing Capital Fund, Judith Paget explained, specifically supports ‘a seamless delivery through a single point of access for delivering integrated care pathways’, and some of the examples emerging from Regional Partnership Boards with such facilities were ‘really great’. She said: “Linked to care closer to home, one of the positives to emerge from the pandemic is the opportunity to do more remotely – using technology not only to link GPs to hospital consultants, but also hospital consultants and GPs to patients in their own homes. Each NHS organisation will need to have a clear digital strategy. Ensuring we think about this when designing our service models and buildings is key.
Collaboration’s importance “Before I get on to the funding challenges,” she continued, “I’d like to emphasise the importance of organisations working together. We have a clear ambition in Wales to make sure our NHS organisations collaborate across boundaries on regional solutions. They need to be explored, and delivered at pace. We can’t afford to replicate the same services at every site, and must use all our existing estate and capacity to best effect, which requires collaboration.” The speaker acknowledged ‘much had been said’ about the waiting list backlog post-pandemic, and many Health Boards were now proposing standalone planned care facilities. She said: “These need to be planned and coordinated for the greatest benefits for the people of Wales. We all
Swansea’s Morriston Hospital was Wales’s first to develop its own full-scale solar farm as part of its comprehensive decarbonisation plan. The installation was delivered by Vital Energi at the nearby Brynwhillach Farm, with electricity transported to the hospital via a 3 km private wire network. The final design is capable of supplying 4 MW of electricity from 10,000 solar PV panels stretching across 14 hectares of land. The solar farm – which ‘went live’ in October 2021 – was anticipated to reduce the hospital’s electricity bill by around £500,000 a year, but with world energy prices spiralling, the Swansea Bay University Health Board says the actual savings could be almost double that figure.
want to see waiting times and lists fall, but must ensure that any planned new facilities properly consider workforce availability.”
Maximum ‘bang for buck’ Judith Paget said that while developing such facilities was a clear priority for the NHS in Wales, resources must be targeted to areas that would afford the maximum impact for patients, represent really good value for money, and have ‘a high confidence of delivery’. NHS capital and revenue funding pressures were the same in Wales as across the rest of the service, resulting in ‘difficult decisions’. She said: “Capital schemes need to demonstrate revenue savings. Everyone here will have experienced very real cost of living pressures, and the NHS faces these too. Prioritisation will thus be key, and NHS healthcare organisations have recently sent in their plans to the Welsh Government, either for the next year, or the next three, and were also all required to submit a five-year capital plan.”
Judith Paget noted that the the NHS Net Zero Building Standard would come into force for healthcare buildings in England and Wales from October, and said the NHS in Wales was ‘still working through the implications’.
36 Health Estate Journal August 2023
Need for a more ‘coherent and strategic’ approach While Welsh Government needed to play its part in the prioritisation process, NHS organisations needed, she argued, ‘to move away from a wish-list of capital schemes, to ones we can ensure develop a
more coherent and strategic approach to what we invest in, need, and develop, for the future.”
Challenging financial climate Despite the ‘challenging financial climate’, Judith Paget said capital funding had been provided through the Estate Funding Advisory Board, and deliberately targeted at areas including fire, infrastructure, and decarbonisation. She said: “I’m told this approach has received considerable positive feedback, because funds have been used to focus on clear assessed priority areas.” NHS Wales organisations had also continued to benefit from decarbonisation scheme support through Re:fit Cymru. The NHS Wales CEO acknowledged
that the amount of capital targeted was ‘not as much as all of us would want or like’. “However,” she stressed, “we are trying to ensure the capital we have is invested wisely, and makes a difference. In conclusion,” she said, “I’d agree that while there are challenging times ahead, there are also opportunities for us all – including NHS healthcare estates and engineering colleagues. I hope you agree that NHS Wales and its wide range of partners need to continue working together to go as far as we can to make the changes we need to to the NHS estate – because it’s absolutely our job to ensure we do things that benefit the citizens of Wales.”
NHS England
Swansea Bay University Health Board
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
