Thoughts from the Centre
A personal take on topical issues impacting the Healthcare and Life Sciences sector powered by Deloitte’s UK Centre for Health Solutions.
NHS productivity: what is the current situation and how might the new NHS plan tackle this?
By Karen Taylor, Director, Centre for Health Solutions
In September 2024, Lord Darzi published the results of a quick and incisive review into the state of the NHS and concluded that the NHS was ’in serious trouble’.1 His report explores how we arrived at this point and identifies some key remedies. In response the Government announced its intention to develop a 10-year plan to ‘fix the NHS’ which will be published in May 2025. The start of 2025 has heralded numerous government announcements including the publication of an Elective reform plan aimed at ‘returning to the constitutional standard of 92 per cent of patients receiving treatment within 18 weeks and building a sustainable NHS that is fit for the future’.2 While the plan identifies many challenges, the need to improve NHS productivity is emphasised throughout, which reflects the findings in the Darzi review. This week’s blog focuses on analysing what has been happening to NHS productivity and what more can be done?
2025 life sciences outlook: top priorities and insights
By Karen Taylor, Director, Centre for Health Solutions
A Deloitte survey of global life sciences (LS) executives conducted in 2024 finds that despite potential disruptions that could reshape the LS industry in 2025, 75 per cent of respondents are optimistic about the year ahead. This optimism is driven by strong growth expectations and a belief that advancements in science and technology could lead to more breakthrough innovations. This survey forms the backdrop to the Deloitte US Center for Health Solutions global 2025 life sciences outlook report highlighting the industry's top priorities and insights. This week’s blog explores these priorities and key insights including the role of digital transformation in driving more change in 2025.
Despite quantum computing's slow start, LSHC organisations need to prepare now!
By Karen Taylor, Director, Centre for Health Solutions
At a recent presentation of our Life Sciences and Healthcare (LSHC) Predictions 2030 report, I fielded a question about quantum computing on when we might expect it to become a reality. My initial response based on research for the predictions report was that the quantum computing market is expected to grow significantly over the next five years as recent quantum breakthroughs have increased its potential to solve problems currently considered insurmountable. Indeed, our prediction ‘Interdependent innovations in science and technology reshaping treatment paradigms’ suggests that quantum computing together with advances in neurotechnology, will revolutionise neurology over the next five years. Another use case in LSHC is turbo charging early-stage drug discovery to bring innovation to the market sooner. But I also admitted I didn’t know enough about it and promised to do some further research and share our findings via our weekly blog. I therefore tapped into Deloitte’s and other secondary research to derive some insights.
How are life sciences and healthcare employees using Generative AI tools in work, approved or not?
By Márcia Costa, Manager, Centre for Health Solutions
GenAI is poised to change the future of work, by automating tasks, but also in unlocking flexibility, creativity and innovation. As we identified in our Accelerating the future: Life Sciences and healthcare predictions 2030 report, GenAI offers a range of opportunities to enhance the activities of most life sciences and healthcare (LSHC) employees. In October 2024, Deloitte published European trust in gen AI based on a survey of 30,252 consumers and employees on the current use and potential impact of these tools. A subset of questions addressed employees use of GenAI in the workplace, including 1,741 respondents from LSHC industries. This weeks’ blog explores how LSHC employees in Europe are using GenAI tools in their workplace (with or without their company’s approval), their expectations as to how these tools might make their work more enjoyable and productive, and the current lack of access, guidance and training that risks undermining the use of, and trust in, these tools.
Sepsis: Time to Act
By Emily May, Manager, Centre for Health Solutions
I recently had the honour of attending the UK Sepsis Trust’s (UKST) impactful ‘Sepsis: Time to Act’ annual event. The event brought together healthcare professionals (HCPs), passionate advocates and sepsis survivors and their support networks, to raise awareness and incite action to reduce the impact of sepsis. From the informative presentations to the shared personal stories, I was struck by the urgency and importance of addressing sepsis head-on. I’m therefore using this week’s blog to share my key takeaways from the event in order to help amplify UKST’s call to action and continue to raise awareness of, and share solutions to, the scale and impact of sepsis.
Beyond the statistics: How positive role models can improve men's health
By Márcia Costa, Manager, Deloitte Centre for Health Solutions
International Men's Day (IMD), celebrated annually on 19 November, celebrates the positive impact men have on society and emphasises the importance of maintaining health and wellbeing. Its aim is to provide a platform to discuss critical issues like men’s mental health, challenge stereotypes, promote gender equality, and create a safer, better world. Importantly it also aims to raise awareness of the unique health and social challenges that men face. In the UK, like most high-income countries, men still have a shorter life expectancy than women, with higher rates of heart disease, cancer, and suicide. This year’s theme for IMD is ‘Positive Male Role Models’. In this week’s blog we explore some of the health issues and barriers to accessing care men face in the UK and how positive male role models can improve men’s health and well-being.
Smart manufacturing, digital supply chains may help pharma boost value
By Laks Pernenkil, principal and practice leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP
The potential of AI and digital transformation to revolutionise the complex, global and interconnected pharma supply chain is vast, but, as yet, scaled adoption remains elusive. As we explored in our ‘Intelligent drug supply chain: Creating value from AI’ 2020 report, AI-powered technologies have the potential to analyse the vast amount of data from the complex chain, enabling real-time decision making, boosting efficiency, and increasing cost-effectiveness. Indeed, we found that many companies were investing in digital technologies, but were yet making consistent, sustained and bold moves to take advantage of the capabilities at scale. This week’s blog, which first appeared as a Center for Health Solution’s Health Forward blog, explores how, four years on, while some companies have started to shift from legacy manufacturing to smart manufacturing processes and adopt digital supply chains, achieving this at scale is still a challenge. The blog therefore provides crucial insights on the organisational and cultural changes needed to achieve this shift.
2025 outlook for US life sciences and health care: Consumers and convergence could disrupt the status quo
By Kulleni Gebreyes, M.D., vice chair and US Life Sciences & Health Care Industry leader, Deloitte
Our ten life sciences and healthcare predictions 2030 which we launched over the past five or so weeks explore the potential changes that the life science and healthcare sectors are likely to experience over the next five years. One of the key drivers for these changes is the need to address changing consumer expectations for more convenient, affordable, personalised care. Persistent long wait times and access and equity challenges highlight a growing disconnect between consumer needs and the services offered by traditional healthcare models. This week’s blog, which first appeared as a Center for Health Solution’s Health Forward blog, is by Deloitte’s new US Life Sciences and Health Care leader, Kulleni Gebreyes, M.D., explores how innovative life sciences and healthcare organisations could address these challenges through strategic cross-industry collaborations and convergence across different sectors and industries. While this blog is focused on the experience of US health care consumers, there are lessons for many other healthcare systems.
Accelerating the future: How to enable healthcare innovation, equity and sustainability
By Márcia Costa, Research Manager, and Emily May, Research Manager, Centre for Health Solutions
Last week, we published the last of our ten life sciences and healthcare (LSHC) predictions that together form our Accelerating the future vision. These predictions provide an optimistic and deliberately provocative view of the world in 2030 to help organisations prepare for the changes ahead. Realising this future, however, depends on overcoming four cross-cutting constraints that are impacting all ten predictions. Each constraint affects each prediction differently and requires new, innovative approaches to be tackled effectively. These constraints are not having the right: skills and talent, funding and business models, approach to regulation and governance over digitalisation and data. In this blog, we explore how to turn these constraints into enablers, to accelerate us towards the future outlined in our predictions.
Accelerating the future: driving growth and innovation through M&A and divestments
By Márcia Costa, Manager, and Karen Taylor, Director, Centre for Health Solutions
Our tenth and final prediction from our Accelerating the future: Life Sciences and Healthcare predictions 2030 report is on Life sciences mergers and acquisitions (M&A), divestments and restructuring. We anticipate that the uptick in M&A activity seen in 2024 will continue over the next five years and that by 2030 M&A will be a critical part of every life sciences company’s corporate strategy. Moreover, that divestments of non-core assets will be a critical element for every life sciences company, including pharma, consumer health and MedTech, in proactively managing their product portfolios, unlocking growth and embracing innovation. In this week’s blog, we summarise the insights from this prediction to help life sciences companies to rethink their M&A strategies up to 2030.
Accelerating the future: realising the potential of the Internet of Medical Things
By Márcia Costa, Manager, and Karen Taylor, Director, Deloitte Centre for Health Solutions
This week, we publish the penultimate prediction from our Accelerating the future: Life Sciences and Healthcare predictions 2030 report, Realising the potential of the Internet of Medical Things. As always, the prediction is intended to be both optimistic and provocative, this time looking into how MedTech companies might leverage advances in AI, cloud computing and connectivity to create data-driven innovations that enable more effective and personalised diagnoses, monitoring, and treatments for patients; and support the shift towards value-based healthcare. This week blog summarises the main insights from our MedTech prediction, how the constraints that could impede the prediction can be overcome and need to be over and explore how AI can help accelerate the prediction and the different roles that MedTech companies might play in the health ecosystem.