What do you do if you don’t have capital?
Whether it’s the private finance ban, the ban on borrowing or IFRS16, there are not a lot of easy ways to get NHS buildings completed without capital budget. This explains why and what few options might be open.
Health on the High Street
The NHS is the anchor institution for most of its communities. What can it do to make more of a positive difference for those communities?
Budget 2024: Capital projects - More checks than balances?
The 2024 Budget brings welcome capital investment to the NHS, but at what price to timely delivery?
Challenges and Solutions for the NHS Estate (CIPFA)
Thoughts and reflections from the CIPFA Roundtable on NHS estates challenges and solutions.
Why the NHS Capital Budget should be £16bn
NHS capital spending is going to enable the kind of transformation the service needs to get on top of its performance challenges. A compelling case can be made for boosting the NHS capital budget to around £16bn annually. Here, I present a variety of methods to estimate the need. None are perfect, but they all come to an uncannily similar number.
New hospitals should be part of our industrial strategy
Healthcare capital needn't just be about infrastructural repair. It can play a strategic role in future UK industrial strategy. The Cambridge Biomedical Campus contributes hugely to the local and national economy, showcasing the potential for the UK to replicate the economic impact from major US health systems. To reach world-class standards, we must invest capital. The good news is that these investments could become self-sustaining through innovations and industry partnerships.
Five things that could save Healthcare
Things are bad but there is always reason to hope. Everyone has their own examples of the hope on the horizon - but these are my favourite five today. They aren’t the result of a careful scoring and curation - they are just some of the ones I carry about in my head. In a world full of negative narrative, they bring hope to me that maybe we’ll be ok. I hope they will for you too! Oh. And none of them are AI.
Can capitation really save NHS dentistry?
There’s lots of talk about capitating NHS dental payments, like for GPs. But would it work?
What could a new PFI look like?
The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was responsible for funding 694 projects across the UK. Initially loved by markets, hated by the left, and the doyenne of the centre, its gloss faded over time. Project failures and continuing bad publicity made it a problem for Government, while project disputes, especially in the NHS, made it unpopular with banks and investors.
And yet, calls to bring it back are increasing in volume. So how do we create a new PFI which is better than the original?
How not to get Value for Money
Many procurement processes attempt to score price, rather than use it as a denominator in a Value for Money assessment. This post explains why that’s not helpful. Fortunately, this practice has diminished hugely since this post was published.