Healthcare in Thoughts from the Centre
What impact might the COVID-19 pandemic have during Autumn 2021?
By Karen Taylor, Director, and Pratik Avhad, Senior Analyst, Centre for Health Solutions
This week the Deloitte Academy hosted its latest ‘The Deloitte Quarterly Forward Look’ where I and my fellow Insight colleagues discussed what we are seeing and expect to happen over the next three months. My focus was on the public health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, both globally and in the UK. I was supported in my preparation for this webinar by research from my senior analyst, Pratik Avhad, who has supported me in understanding the evolving story of the pandemic over the past 18 months. I thought I would use this week’s blog to share some of our latest research on infection numbers, vaccinations and the likelihood of another lockdown in the coming months.
Reflections from a research analyst: Five reasons I’m glad I joined Deloitte
By Krissie Ferris, Research Analyst, Centre for Health Solutions
This is my last week in the Deloitte Centre for Health Solutions, my home at Deloitte for almost two years. I'm not moving far though as I’m joining Deloitte’s Technology Digital Risk (TDR) Public Sector Health team, where I’ll be working with clients across the NHS and the wider healthcare industry to digitise ways of working and to help realise the huge opportunities for operational efficiencies and improved patient outcomes that can be enabled through technology. Having started my career in the NHS, I’m excited to start this new chapter and bring with me the knowledge and skills I’ve developed in my research role at the Centre. This blog reflects on my fabulous time at Deloitte so far and shares some of the reasons I’m looking forward to joining the health team.
The road to recovery for elective care in the NHS: an uphill battle?
By Emma Gould, Manager, and Scott Grainger, Manager, Deloitte Risk Advisory
When the first wave of COVID-19 hit the UK, the NHS had to prepare for worst-case scenarios. Plans for temporary hospitals and surge critical care capacity were rapidly drawn up, non-urgent services were significantly scaled down, and large numbers of staff were redeployed to ensure the NHS would be able to care for the impending rush of severely ill patients. More than a year on, and in the midst of another surge in positive cases, the true scale of the pandemic’s impact on wider health provision is starting to emerge as hospitals face an uphill battle to restore and recover elective services alongside increasing COVID-19 admissions.
Embracing ‘Net Zero’ to reduce the impact of climate change on public health
By Samrina Bhatti, Manager, Centre for Health Solutions
The World Health Organisation estimates that, between 2030 and 2050, climate change will be responsible for approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year.1 Climate change affects a number of social and environmental determinants of health – clean air, safe drinking water, availability of sufficient food and secure shelter - and experts consider it as the next public health crisis.2 ‘Net Zero’ has been adopted by the UK, the EU, and many other countries around the world as the best strategy to protect global populations from rising temperatures. This week is ‘NetZero Week,’ the UK’s national awareness week aimed at highlighting climate change challenge and providing expert advice and information to help individuals and businesses understand the challenge and how to benefit from making changes.3 This week’s blog builds on NetZero campaign to explores climate change’s impact on public health and how healthcare organisations can prioritise net zero efforts.
A data-driven future for healthcare regulation
By Dominique Walcot, Consultant and Dan Donaghy, Director, Deloitte Consulting
Over the past few years, health regulators have been increasingly looking to use emerging technologies and new business models to reduce the burden of compliance and drive better efficiencies and regulatory outcomes. Recent changes to health legislation had been driving reform, and these changes were rapidly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Overnight, health regulators were unable to complete traditional face-to-face inspections or registration checks and had to rapidly evolve their models; deploying remote technologies and new ways of working to ensure key activities could be completed to keep patients and staff as safe as possible. For some regulators, this even meant moving into new areas of operations – such as vaccination monitoring. This blog discusses changes to the UK health regulatory system, growing trends in safety and quality regulation, and lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The muddy road to a net zero health system
By Lisa Dittmar, Manager, Deloitte Consulting
Healthcare organisations face an exciting but uncertain future. In the face of the COVID-19 recovery, future health crises, the climate crisis, shifting models of care and increased digitalisation, generations of leaders will need to battle increasing levels of complexity alongside continuing uncertainty and make decisions quickly with incomplete information. Ultimately, however, they have less than 30 years to develop a net zero healthcare system that operates within a net zero economy. While this is daunting it’s also exciting and, if achieved, the future will be bright.
World Blood Donor Day 2021 – the UK’s actions to improve recruitment and retention of blood donors
By Emily May, Research Analyst, Centre for Health Solutions
Giving blood or blood plasma saves lives, both in an emergency and for those people needing long-term treatments. Unfortunately, there are still many whose treatments are compromised because there aren’t enough supplies. Every year on June 14, organisations around the globe celebrate World Blood Donor Day (WBDD). This year’s WBDD campaign has the slogan ‘Give blood and keep the world beating’, aimed at reinforcing the global call for more people all over the world to donate blood regularly.1 In the UK, alongside championing donors, NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) have used WBDD to introduce a new blood donation safety assessment initiative aimed at making donating blood more inclusive and accessible without affecting safety.2 This week’s blog explores this new initiative and how extra safety measures during the COVID-19 pandemic have protected the health of donors to enable blood donations to continue safely.
Why increasing access to nature is important for mental health
By Krissie Ferris, Research Analyst, Centre for Health Solutions
This week is the UK’s national Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW). This year’s theme is ‘Nature’ and how connecting with the natural world can support ‘good mental health’.1 During the long months of the pandemic, research by the Mental Health Foundation found that millions of people have turned to nature to help get through lockdowns, their findings showing that connecting with nature can be both preventative as well as aid recovery from poor mental health. Its research found that going for walks outside was one of the top coping strategies during lockdowns, and 45 per cent reported that being in green spaces has been vital for their mental health.2 However, the pandemic has highlighted huge disparities in access to natural spaces, especially for people living in urban areas, as well as those on lower incomes. This blog explores how a ‘nature in all policies’ approach could improve the nation’s health and wellbeing.
How MedTech companies will drive the future of health
By Karen Taylor, Director, Centre for Health Solutions and Michel De Ridder, Partner, Deloitte Belgium, Regulatory compliance
Last week my colleague Michel De Ridder and I participated in the annual MedTech Europe Forum 2021, where we delivered a presentation on our Deloitte Centre for Health Solutions research report 'Predicting the future of healthcare and life sciences in 2025: The future unmasked'. Our focus was on our sixth prediction 'MedTech and the IOMT are crucial drivers of value-based care'. However, we also discussed the implications of findings in our November 2020 research paper, ‘Winning in the future of MedTech’, underpinned by our global campaign on the Future of Health.i Following our presentation, we ran an ‘Ask the expert session’ to discuss emerging issues in relation to IP management. This week’s blog highlights the main themes that we discussed and explores the implications for MedTech companies’ role in the future of health.
Thriving after COVID-19: building an adaptable and resilient healthcare workforce
By Karen Taylor, Director Deloitte Centre for Health Solutions
Deloitte’s, 2021 global health care outlook: Accelerating industry change, explores the six critical foundational shifts driving change in the health care sector. These shifts, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, comprise consumers and the human experience; care model innovation; digital transformation and interoperable data; socio-economic shifts; public-private collaborations; and the future of work and talent. How governments understand and respond to these issues will shape their ability to navigate through recovery and thrive post-pandemic. Over the next couple of months, as part of our blog series, we will examine each shift in turn. This week’s blog considers the future of work and talent, starting with the challenges pre-pandemic, the impact of the pandemic and need for adaptable and resilient workforce for the future.