As we move through the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have been discussing in-house the impact it has had on us, what it means for the health and care sector and where we see NHS efforts being focused over the coming months and we are really interested in hearing your views too.
The pandemic has, without a doubt, affected every aspect of our daily lives over the last three months both personally and professionally.
As we move through the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have been discussing in-house the impact it has had on us, what it means for the health and care sector and where we see NHS efforts being focused over the coming months and we are really interested in hearing your views too.
If you have 20 seconds to spare, read on to see how to share your opinion in our quick poll. We will publish the anonymised results in the next edition and use the information to help shape future editions of our newsletter ensuring we provide support and advice on the issues which matter to you.
In a recent employment webinar our team posed the following question as an ice breaker “What is one reflection from the Covid-19 experience that you would like to share?” Ice breakers can be notoriously tricky to get right but this one turned out to be a conversation a success and people willingly shared both their personal and/or professional reflections. So we thought we would put the question out to our wider audience.
However, we also thought it only fair to share our reflections with you as well…
Our views: volunteered by fee earners across the sector the messages we received included:
“I have been very impressed by the whole health and social care sector’s ability to adapt quickly, integrating new ways of working into practice to enable the right care to be delivered, particularly through the use of technology. Having sat on various ethics debates, the commitment to driving the right responses to challenging situation has reaffirmed why I committed myself to work in this area. I am optimistic that this momentum will be taken forward with new possibilities in the way care is delivered.”
“I have been amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the health and care community has been able to come together and collaborate in a time of crisis. I only hope the “can-do” attitude will not be quashed by bureaucracy and that the development of Integrated Care Systems will benefit from the new spirit of collaboration.”
“That virtual mechanisms enable a lot but that there are some interactions that would benefit from traditional ‘in-person’ ways of working.”
“What has struck me most has the been the speed at which technology has changed the ways in which healthcare services are now being delivered and new technologies developed. I will be really interested to see the extent to which these new ways of working, including the use of digital technologies, continue as the restrictions continue to be eased and how NHS organisations continue to embrace new technologies.”
There were clear themes running through the responses we received with multiple references to how technology has been embraced and the sector has come together. It seems, at least to us here, that the response to the pandemic has highlighted a number of changes/advancements in ways of working and rapid advancement of digital technologies that will be key to delivering the Long Term Plan and providing the building blocks for moving forward with it at the right moment.
Both of those themes will feature in our upcoming newsletters which focus on integrated care systems and health tech. We would really love to hear from you so please do share your views with us and help shape our content.
Question: what is one reflection from the Covid-19 experience that you would like to share?
Contact the team with your response
Leaving aside delivery of clinical services, which of the following areas do you think the NHS should prioritise as we move past the peak of Covid-19:
The BMA is advising all NHS / HSCNI consultants to ensure extra-contractual work is paid at the BMA minimum recommended rate and to decline offers of extra-contractual work that doesn't value them appropriately.
NHS England has published (October 2022) new guidance - Assuring and supporting complex change: Statutory transactions, including mergers and acquisitions.
NHS England has issued an updated (publication 11 October 2022) suite of Complex Change guidance about how it will assure and support proposals for complex change that are reportable to it. New and (where it is still in force) existing Complex Change guidance are as follows.
Created at the end of the Brexit transition period, Retained EU Law is a category of domestic law that consists of EU-derived legislation retained in our domestic legal framework by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. This was never intended to be a permanent arrangement as parliament promised to deal with retained EU law through the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (the “Bill”).
It is clear that the digital landscape, often termed cyberspace, is a man-made environment, in which human behaviour dominates and where technology both influences and aids our role in it — through the internet, telecoms and networked computer systems, which are often interdependent. The extent to which any organisation is potentially vulnerable to cyber-attack depends on how well these elements are aligned.
In Mogane v Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) considered whether it was fair to dismiss a nurse as redundant on the basis that that her fixed-term contract was due to expire before that of her colleague.
Three months on from the commencement of the new statutory Integrated Care Systems (ICS) Anja Beriro and Gerrard Hanratty reflect on the main themes and issues that have come from the new relationship between local government and health.
The majority of people do not feel the need to embellish their CV to get that coveted position and move on up the career ladder. Their worthiness and benefit to the hiring organisation are easily demonstrated through the recruitment process – application, psychometric testing, selection day or interview.
On Saturday 15 October a wave of light swept the internet when thousands of people flooded social media with pictures of candles to remember the babies that they have lost. This event signifies the end of Baby Loss Awareness Week which aims to break the silence that is associated with baby loss in pregnancy and infancy.
The Coronavirus Act 2020 allowed any registered medical practitioner to sign a medical certificate of cause of death (“MCCD”), even if the deceased was not attended to during his or her last illness and not seen after death, provided that the medical practitioner could state the cause of death to the best of their knowledge and belief.
In our latest Shared Insights session, Focus on Emergency Medicine, chaired by Jennifer Fagin and Amelia Newbold, we were pleased to be joined by: Dr Alex Crowe, Deputy Director Incentive Schemes & Academic Partnerships, NHS Resolution and Consultant Nephrologist and Miss Susie Hewitt MBE, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust.
