Tackling NHS provider deficits

Vanguard Healthcare’s business development director, STEVEN PEAK, suggests that mobile healthcare facilities could have a key part to play in addressing the challenges faced by financially constrained NHS providers.

Recently published NHS provider sector projections suggest that the annual deficit for 2015-16 could be upwards of £2bn. Now Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Agency have warned providers that tough measures must be adopted to reduce their deficits. If the analysis is to be believed, the suggestion that the NHS is facing an enormous financial challenge is very real. In the longer term, the Five Year Forward View is working to create a more efficient health service, in terms of clinical and financial sustainability. The emerging new models of care will be at the forefront of this drive, but will not begin to deliver substantial efficiencies until 2017-18, according to recent forecasts. In the short term, providers may need to look to other,more immediate solutions.

Mobile healthcare facilities have come to play an increasingly important role within the NHS. Over half of acute Trusts and health boards have made use of a mobile facility at some time during the past decade. Yet wider spread adoption of this kind of on-demand clinical infrastructure could form a piece of the puzzle to assist NHS providers to improve their financial sustainability.