ENERGY GENERATION
installation in domestic and non-domestic buildings over the next seven years.
Transitions and re-skilling As of 2019, the proportion of workers aged 16-69 in green jobs in the healthcare and social work sector stood at 4%. The Resolution Foundation report points out that transitions out of, and reskilling of brown jobs – together with ensuring that the skills need of green jobs is met – will likely require extra effort from firms, the Government, and workers themselves. Getting the workforce ready for the Hospital of 2040 will require a shift in recruitment, skills, and training, and career progression around the sector. The journey towards a Net Zero hospital will be a people-powered revolution, driven by the existing ambition and dedication of the NHS workforce. What used to be niche and ‘nerdy’ is now mainstream. Understanding energy technology is the base, but reframing the work and the workforce will get us there.
Charting a course for success Finally, large-scale initiatives require a well-defined blueprint that makes clear the primary objectives, the allotted timeframe for completion, the budgetary constraints, and potential funding avenues. This approach simplifies the planning, structuring, and financing, of different phases of a project, and enables leadership teams to ensure that healthcare services remain safe and dependable. A critical element of this blueprint must be finance. While there is current political and economic uncertainty, we cannot afford to wait for more affluent and stable times to start to make changes. Investment into the development and enhanced capability of teams and individuals is a first step. This will lead to: n Better resource management: a skilled resource planning team will make all the difference to creating accurate and comprehensive plans which ensure that resources – human, material, energy, and financial – are optimally allocated and
Lucy Symons-Jones and Lexica
Lucy Symons-Jones is the Net Zero director at Lexica – a specialist health and life sciences consultancy of more than 100 experts, previously known as ETL, born out of the NHS in 2014 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
She joined Lexica from the Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE), where she headed the External Affairs team, and led its ‘strategic transformation under a Net Zero
vision’, as well as supporting key stakeholders in engaging the government. In her previous roles, she combined her business and public policy expertise ‘to define, design, and implement, policy and technology solutions’. Lexica says she will lead the company through its ‘exciting growth plans’. At the business she is liaising at executive level with public sector organisations and ‘leading suppliers and innovators’ to reach national Net Zero targets.
used. This will result in cost savings and improved outcomes.
n Innovation and technological advancements: investment in people will also facilitate the adoption of new technologies, digital systems, and commercial solutions, which will transform the way we think about and deliver zero-carbon healthcare services, shaping positive longer-term net cash and carbon outcomes, while embedding a circular economy solution for the benefit of the next generation.
n Capacity to address increasing demands: Investment into planning teams will boost the strategic skills required to navigate and meet the rising demands on the NHS without losing sight of the Net Zero goal. Future capacity resilience, coupled with adaptability to meet future clinical needs and policy, will ensure that ‘green tech’ will remain current and offer value.
n Resilience to crisis situations: the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of robust health system planning. Investing in planning teams strengthens the healthcare system’s ability to manage and respond to future public health emergencies more effectively, and to continue to drive
forwards with decarbonising hospitals.
n Leveraging commercial solutions: Health is unique to many, but has many similarities to other public sub- sectors; the same pressures to deliver service and outcome with constrained economics. UK examples demonstrate that acceptable inward investment can be secured to shape decarbonisation solutions for the public sector, with funding partners looking to sit in longer-term arrangements that are not solely financially driven. Creating pan-sector, sub-regional, or intra-public sector solutions can and does work, if commerciality and governance structure permit and encourage solution-finding, instead of reinforcing siloed attitudes. The future planning team to deliver the Hospital of 2040 will need to work with a commercial, technical, and operational focus.
Therefore, financial investment into the development and capability of UK healthcare planning teams is not only a matter of improving the system’s current operation; it’s also an essential strategy for preparing for future healthcare needs and challenges, as well as ensuring the long- term sustainability of the health system.
March 2024 Health Estate Journal 51
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