Shifting services and enhancing efficiency

How the healthcare sector, and, in particular, the estates and facilities managers running healthcare facilities UK-wide, can "survive, strive and thrive" given an environment where real-term healthcare spending growth could fall below 1% over the next five years, was the main theme of the recent HefmA 2010 national conference in Harrogate. One key conclusion was that estates and facilities professionals will, in future, need to adapt quickly to a scenario where a growing number of services onc considered core to large acute hospitals will migrate to more "all-embracing" primary care facilities nearer to patients' homes. HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie reports.