Provider sector facing formidable challenges

Guest blog by Dame Gill Morgan, chair of NHS Providers,who discusses how this year’s annual conference will allow leaders of the provider sector to refresh energies, share solutions and clarify policy confusions. 

The current financial, logistical and organisational challenges facing the NHS are formidable. They offer significant challenges or, as politicians would like us to refer to them, formidable opportunities for those who lead or work in the service. As the old Chinese proverb says ‘crisis is opportunity riding on the crest of danger’. This has never been more appropriate. 

This ‘opportunity’-rich environment comes at a particular time of change. The general election, against predictions, has given us a majority Conservative government, and the Fixed-Term Parliament Act means it will last five years to 2020. The government’s Comprehensive Spending Review, which will set the tone for the next few years, is well underway, and will report on 25 November. 

The merging of Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority into the new NHS Improvement sees big changes among NHS regulators. Alongside all this, regular surveys by the King’s Fund, Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation all show the NHS provider sector with both quality and finances under pressure. There is continual debate about new organisational forms and many are now openly challenging the added benefit of commissioning as currently constituted. 

This all creates an environment where the task of leading and managing provider organisations has never been more difficult. Whether we see these challenges as opportunities or threats, the fact is that the basic reason why the brilliant staff of the NHS came into their jobs – to help patients with high-quality care, free at the point of need – doesn’t always feel like the basic organising principle driving the current management and reform of the NHS. 

NHS Providers’ annual conference and exhibition aims to address this and unpick some of the issues. Hearing from key system leaders and international experts, as well as our members working hard at the sharp end of the challenge-opportunity spectrum, our programme is organised into five major themes, which aim cumulatively to help the NHS community. 

Delivering the Five Year Forward View: One year on from its publication, we will explore what progress has been made in delivering the vision, both at a national policy level and within individual local health economies. 

Everyone agrees that effective leadership is vital if the NHS is to meet these challenges of today and tomorrow. But what does it look like in a context of increasing demand, static resources, blurring boundaries and new care models? Effective leadership for future models will explore this. 

Modernising services and indeed systems to adapt to the realities of demand and finance will be the focus of our Enabling strategic change strand. The growing expectation on trusts to lead and deliver strategic change in their local health economy is an acknowledgement of our sector’s capacity and capability. Providers are being asked to move quicker, work harder, deliver things differently, transform and continue maintaining high-quality services, all within a constrained and pressurised environment. We will share learning on the relationships and key requirements in supporting providers to deliver this transformation and manage these competing pressures. 

However effective, leaders don’t act alone. The importance of Governance, board leadership and accountability is only overlooked by the unwise. In a time of change as the only constant, good corporate governance (the means by which boards lead and control their organisations) is not just about systems and processes, but rather the very essence of effective board leadership. 

Nobody knows better than our members that the challenge to ensure quality of NHS care remains high and in step with rising need and expectations has never been greater. Our Patients and quality first sessions will focus on keeping these fundamentals at the heart of everything we do. 

These are tough times for the NHS, but our annual conference and exhibition is a chance for leaders of the provider sector to refresh energies, share solutions and clarify policy confusions. We hope you will be able to join us in Birmingham, and look forward to seeing you there. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION

The NHS Providers’ annual conference and exhibition will take place from 10-11 November 2015 at the ICC in Birmingham.