HEALTHCARE ESTATES 2024 KEYNOTES
He said: “It’s been extremely rewarding visiting colleges and seeing young adults doing those apprenticeships, and really looking for a career in estates and facilities, and particularly engineering. We’re engaging with about 4000 young people through the programme.” The outreach was ‘crucial’ in inspiring the next
generation of engineers and healthcare professionals. He said: “We’re excited that, in the past year, 30 young people have been undertaking T level placements in NHS engineering teams. We’re looking to expand that to see how we can bring further opportunities into this sector. Tomorrow, another NHSE speaker, Fiona Daly (the Director of Sustainability and Workforce, and National Deputy Director of Estates at NHS England – see pages 29-34) will talk more on the ‘workforce’ theme.”
After their presentations, the three speakers took some interesting questions for the audience.
America’s Cup sailing, meanwhile, you’ll see that simply by installing a foil on the side of the boat, they take a 70-foot boat from 15 kilometres/hour to 85 kilometres/ hour – the most extraordinary piece of engineering. That’s what engineering is at its heart, but it’s also about keeping the show on the road. The engineers we have within the NHS estate are either at that high end – dealing with the medical equipment, the intensive care units etc., or the many other personnel keeping us and our patients safe, and it is quite outstanding the work you all do here.”
Attracting more engineers Simon Corben explained that there are currently around 120,000 people working within Estates & Facilities across the NHS in England – a mix of private suppliers and directly employed NHS staff. The latter make up about 94,000 of that 120,000, but only 3000 of those are registered as engineers. Simon Corben said: “I think the number is actually far higher, and we need to celebrate that, but it’s not a huge number considering the amount of responsibility you and your teams take on board daily. “In terms of the diversity of the workforce,” he conceded,
As always, the conference’s keynote sessions were extremely well attended.
“currently just 11% of the estates and facilities management workforce is made up of black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups, and only 27% are female over Band Four. There’s thus a significant amount of work we need to do in this area; a lot of it is around engineering.” Focusing on how NHS England can improve on this – in terms of its equality goals, Simon Corben explained that it will be looking to publish a document ‘which will really start to think about how we can set some targets across the NHS workforce to improve where we are currently today’. In 2023-2024, he explained, approximately 800 estates and facilities staff had accessed apprenticeships. He said: “We’re seeing a number of school leaders get up to Master and Degree level; there is really something we can do for everyone.” Over the past year, Simon Corben explained, the NHSE Estates & Facilities team had undertaken ‘a huge amount of work’ around the Schools Outreach Programme.
Assurance and compliance Continuing his presentation, he said: “On assurance and compliance, the Premises Assurance Model (‘PAM’) is going really well, with the returns at the highest level yet. However, it’s really important that PAM isn’t misunderstood as a case of ‘everything is fine’ when you see a returns score of 98%. That doesn’t necessarily mean the estate we’re working in is at its finest. We need to better articulate the fact that while our PAM scores are up in the 90s, this doesn’t often mean our estate is compliant.” Simon Corben said he felt the PLACE (Patient-Led
Assessments of the Care Environment) assessments were ‘a really good mirror for those that understand them’, and ‘another good reflection on how the estate is working, and how, as organisations, we are looking after the patient environment’. He said: “Currently Cleanliness is up at 98.1%, and Appearance and Maintenance at 95% – so again, really good scores, but these doesn’t necessarily reflect the difficulties we’re going through to achieve those scores. Again, a huge hat off to all involved. “The final thing I want to talk about,” Simon Corben
explained, “is the insight I have had for the past two years as a Non-Executive Director at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust – particularly about the need to articulate the message to the Board about the issues you all face daily. You need to recognise that some Board personnel don’t understand the language we speak within Estates & Facilities, and thus using tools like PAM gives us an opportunity to develop that narrative, and be able to teach Non-Executive Directors how and where the problems are. My suggestion is to team up with an NED on your board. If you’re not on the Board, this can be done through the Executives, but nurture them and let them understand some of the challenges you face, but also some of the opportunities you can bring to a challenging environment. Explain the impact that a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ environment has both on patient care, and the reactive maintenance you and your teams must undertake. One Trust I met recently said they undertake 2000 reactive maintenance tasks in a single month; that’s the condition of the estate we’re dealing with in some cases.” Simon Corben concluded: “I think engineering in
healthcare has never been so important – not only because of the innovation we want to see driving through, and the technology we’re seeing coming in, but also in terms of keeping the show on the road. A great example was the phenomenal work everyone did through COVID to keep us and our patients safe. So, it’s really important we come together, and I’m delighted to be here today to work with Hilary, John, and Pete to see how we really bring through and foster the next generation of engineers within the healthcare estate.” Here Pete Sellars thanked all three speakers, and invited questions.
42 Health Estate Journal January 2025
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