Guardian Healthcare Professionals Network has just published two articles by me. The first is on Plymouth Community Healthcare, an expanding healthcare company running NHS and social care services in and around the city.
The organisation argues that its status as a not-for-profit, no-shareholders community interest company is better than being part of an NHS trust. It reckons the services it runs are often lost within trusts focused mainly on acute or mental health; that it is more flexible and in tune with local needs; and that it is able to focus its spending on its local area, which NHS trusts can’t do.
According to finance director Dan O’Toole:
The national health service is national by its nature. We can work in a very different way. For us, the challenge was taking the best of the NHS and enhancing it. We wouldn’t go back into the NHS as an organisation.
I have also written a guide to five ways in which telehealth could benefit the NHS, including video appointments, remote analysis of data and sending results straight to patients.