Healthcare in Thoughts from the Centre
Will you take on Cancer Research UK’s Veg Pledge challenge this November?
By Krissie Ferris, Research Analyst, Centre for Health Solutions
Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is encouraging the nation to take the ‘Veg Pledge’ this November and go vegetarian or vegan for one month.1 Those taking part can obtain plenty of tips, recipes and fundraising ideas from CRUK to help them through their challenge. Being vegan myself, and having just completed my first week at Deloitte, it was great to see so many plant-based offerings on the menu at our snazzy 1 New Street Square canteen. Providing more plant-based options is the main way employers are responding to the cultural shift that is turning more and more people towards plant-based diets (see Deloitte’s 2019 article ‘Plant-based alternatives, Driving industry M&A’).2 However, there are many other approaches that leading companies like Deloitte can take to encourage and inspire plant-based eating in the workplace. This blog explores those opportunities and the benefits of plant-based eating.
Steering the ship – Governance for a new world
By Mark Green, Director Board Advisory
The NHS Long Term Plan (LTP) and the development of STPs, ICSs, ICPs and now PCNs (see Figure 1), not only makes for a mouthful of acronyms, but also raises the prospect of a governance headache. While the LTP requires every NHS organisation and their local partners to become part of a geographically-based ICS by April 2021, and recognises that it’s possible to implement the necessary changes without primary legislation, it also acknowledges that legislative change could make implementation easier and faster.1 However, there are currently limited signs of any primary legislation being introduced in the short to medium term to support and guide the shift in health and care policy.
Can objective knowledge on GM foods change public opinion?
By Elliot Birtwhistle, Deloitte Consulting
Genetic modification (GM) is the process of altering the genes of a living organism. The words invoke images of secret government labs and scientists in white hazmat suits that inject rodents with glowing liquid. The reality is somewhat more nuanced. Genetic modification either inserts a gene, or a small number of genes into a plant or animal – or ‘silences’ an existing gene(s) to produce a genetically modified organism. The applications are widespread and include medicines, consumer products and commercial agriculture. This week’s blog explores some of the issues surrounding GM foods.
The cost-effectiveness of biosimilars: Delivering value for money from pharma spending
By Karen Taylor and Pratik Avhad, Centre for Health Solutions
Two months ago, I participated in a Westminster Health Forum panel discussing Biologics and Biosimilars. My remit was to discuss the cost effectiveness of biosimilars and their contribution to value for money in pharma spending. This week’s blog shares the findings from the research we did for the presentation.
Delivering the efficiency challenge: The case for system wide efficiency programmes
By Dr Christine Armistead and Gurminder Khaira
The combination of significant financial challenges, growing demand for services and major workforce shortages demands a different approach if the NHS is deliver the ambitions set out in the Long Term Plan (LTP). A key priority is the need to put the NHS back onto a sustainable financial footing. This includes major reforms to the NHS’ financial architecture, payment systems and incentives, and a requirement for the NHS to deliver cash-releasing productivity growth of at least 1.1 per cent a year.1
The journey of my internship: Titanic or Apollo 11?
By Nahiyan Khan, Intern, Monitor Deloitte
My journey as an intern started back in December 2018, alone with my laptop and wavering confidence, fuelled by the daunting stories from my peers about the hundreds of internships they had applied to and the succession of rejections they seemed to get like some sort of corporate ‘tinder’. This, coupled with my third year dissertation constantly on my mind, meant that I didn’t have the most motivated mind set. Still, I remember deciding to apply to one last internship before retiring for the day - Monitor Deloitte. This choice came from a mixture of wanting to get an insight into what strategy consulting actually does, and hearing about Deloitte as a great place for a new graduate to start their career. First would come the immersive online assessment, followed by the job simulation and then, if successful, the final assessment (see Figure 1).
Payment reform for integrated care: The risks and rewards of reforming payment mechanisms in the NHS
By Jon White, Deloitte Consulting
The NHS Five Year Forward View, published in 2014, included proposals to develop five new models of care or ‘Vanguards’ to help transform and integrate health and social care services. Starting in 2015. NHS England allowed health systems the flexibility to introduce new payment mechanisms that would provide better incentives for local care models. Five years on, we have seen pockets of innovation such as the aligned incentive contract in Coastal West Sussex and the outcomes based contract in Greater Manchester. However, by the end of the vanguard phase of the new care models programme, in March 2018, instead of developing new contracts, most vanguards had used a consensus approach based on non-legal agreements between their partners.i
Forging a new path to commercialization for cell and gene therapies
By Greg Reh, vice chairman, US and Global Life Sciences leader, Deloitte LLP
This week’s blog, by Greg Reh from the US firm, first appeared on the US Center for Health Solutions blog site. The blog features Greg’s commentary on the panel discussion from the Financial Times US Pharma and Biotech Summit about the changes needed to face coming innovations in manufacturing, pricing, and reimbursement of personalized therapies. These innovations include direct-to-payer models, mass customization, and valuation of gene therapies and one-time treatments, all of which present unique challenges to pharma companies’ current technology systems.
Why improving inclusion and diversity in clinical trials should be a research priority
By Karen Taylor, Director, Centre for Health Solutions
Several weeks ago I participated in a panel discussion on inclusion and diversity in clinical trials. My research for the event and the discussion that ensued led me to conclude that while there have been some improvements, the pharma industry continues to struggle to recruit sufficient trial participants from important demographic groups, especially women, racial and ethnic minorities, and the elderly. As a result, the outcomes seen in clinical trials are likely to be unrepresentative of the patient outcomes in the real world.
System and place-based decision making
By James Banham and Seb Zanker
This latest in our series of blogs on the challenges facing Integrated Care Systems (ICS), focuses on how some commissioners are embracing the proposed model of place-based, shared decision making described in the recent guidance from NHS England and NHS Improvement ‘Designing integrated care systems in England’1; and what steps they are taking to transition from transactional to more strategic activities.