The future of hospitals: a consultancy viewpoint

The NHS, like other healthcare systems, is facing challenges arising from shifts in patient needs, new technologies and the need to control costs. To address these challenges, hospitals will need to innovate in their models for service delivery; standardisation and process management, co-production of care, skill-mix changes, more efficient use of assets, and rapid adoption of IT will all be key. To deliver these changes, all hospitals will need to learn from the practices of the current best performers and new financial and operational models, together with different approaches to workforce planning, will be necessary.