Gen Z: The answer to care industry staff shortages?
A study conducted last year revealed that the level of vacant roles and turnover rates within the care industry are the highest they’ve ever been. One of the main factors for this is the ageing population – more people are reaching ages 85+ and are suffering from more complex health issues. The higher levels of dependability means the need for social care services is intensifying and there isn’t a large enough workforce to meet this demand. View the study here. The population of people aged over 65 is forecast to increase by 40% by 2035 and as a result, an additional 650,000 jobs will be required to meet this demand. Almost a quarter (24%) of the current workforce are aged over 55 – meaning that they are likely to retire within the next 10 years – a harsh reality that is putting more pressure on staff shortages. So why not target and utilise a younger generation? Enter Generation Z – a generation renowned for their dedication to hard work, loyalty and desire for independency and job stability. As it stands, there are currently over 110,000 vacant roles within the care industry, alongside an estimated turnover rate of 30.7%. The high level of staff shortage is putting the sector in crisis and adding increased pressure on an already overstretched industry. People are entering care at a younger age more recently – whether this be to retirement villages, assisted living or aged care facilities – and employment levels are failing to meet the necessary requirements. So, what can employers be doing to attract and retain staff within the care industry? Gen Zs’ unique traits should encourage employers within the care industry to adapt and explore new avenues to fill worker shortages. In this article, Blueleaf discusses the challenges and potential solutions faced by the industry, what can be done to meet the demands of the staff shortage crisis and how to attract Gen Z to a career within care. Understand recognition is the key to retention It is clear that employers are struggling to find, recruit and retain suitable people to the sector and within specific roles. Recognition is the key to retaining staff – by recognising and rewarding hard work, your workers will feel valued. Feeling valued, recognised and respected is within some of the top reasons for employers staying at their current place of work, so is definitely an aspect to take advantage of. Unlike millennials, who enjoy working collaboratively as a team and sharing successes, Gen Zs prefer to be judged on their own achievements and have their individual talents recognised and showcased. Ditch zero-hour contracts and agencies A quarter of the workforce (25%) were on a zero-hours contract (335,000 jobs), and as Gen Zs crave job security, this is not an appealing aspect to them. Not only do zero-hour contracts encourage a low sense of commitment and collaboration amongst workers, they also offer a huge income risk and uncertainty of what a worker will earn month to month. Due to such a high level of staff shortages, many care establishments are turning to agencies for temporary staff. This is an expensive and tedious process and one that can be avoided with sensible hiring decisions. According to Thomas International, the average cost of recruiting a new employee is circa £30,000, so is a large cost in an industry with such high turnover rates. Recruiting and retaining competent staff will not only reduce costs, but will boost productivity. If people within the care industry work hard at repositioning it as a rewarding and viable career options amongst Gen Z, the need for zero-hour contracts and agency staff will slowly deteriorate; which will reduce costs and boost productivity. Provide relevant training for the care industry In addition to offering permanent and stable working hours, Gen Zs are also looking for an employer who can provide structured career progression. This generation has grown up in a world where everything is customisable; through the click of a button, they can identify their personal preferences and mould their experiences to suit these and this is an attribute they are looking to adopt within their career. As well as feeling recognised and valued, career growth, learning and development is an important factor amongst talented employees – so promoting this within a care career amongst Gen Zs is advantageous. Gen Zs are less money-driven than millenials and are looking for more than just a salary, making them the ideal candidates for a role within care. They are seeking meaningful jobs which will offer opportunities for advancement alongside the opportunity to learn new skills. Consider the benefits of utilising software solutions This generation is more tech-savvy than their millennial predecessors, so take advantage of this to enhance productivity. Older generations are reluctant to change and don’t want to switch to electronic systems; administrative work hinders employees’ ability to focus their attention on residents, but certain software solution systems have the ability to strip out old paper-based processes. Adopting and implementing cloud-based solutions and other forms of technology to enhance productivity, encourage employee well-being and increase productivity is definitely something to consider. Care management software solutions can help to reduce the pressure on employees by assisting with budgeting, day-to-day care planning, new client assessments, electronic care planning and record keeping. Additionally, adopting an online HR management system will provide your employees with access to essential information they need, as well as the ability to request and amend records – a valuable perk that makes a huge difference to productivity. Whether it’s requesting annual leave, swapping shifts with colleagues or recording absences, online systems will allow for enhanced efficiency. Gen Zs desire the flexibility to structure work around their lives and have the ability to take time off for a family emergency without having to go through a tedious process. The staff shortages aren’t just related to direct care roles, which make up 76% of jobs within adult social care, there are many vacancies within
Care home nurses are REAL nurses
Recruiting and retaining the right care home nurses in order to tackle the social care crisis: by Lindsay Dingwall, Clinical/Academic Nurse Consultant for Older People at the University of Dundee and Lead Educator of the Care Home Nursing: Changing Perceptions course. We already know that there is a crisis in nurse recruitment in the NHS, but care homes especially, are losing out in the race to recruit registered nurses with the best knowledge, skills and talent. Ironically, if care homes close, aside from some of the most vulnerable people in our society being denied the care they need, the NHS also suffers. So why are care home nurses not more valued? Care home work can still be viewed as undesirable and unskilled; notably not by care home nurses who elect to practice in care homes. They recognise that they are skilled nurses who work autonomously to deliver complex, and at times highly specialist, care. These are the nurses who must take up the gauntlet of “selling” care home careers to nursing students. The use of technology in acute hospitals is commonly viewed as skilled care: but the skill comes from the practitioner’s knowledge and experience of when and how to use technology to save lives. Nursing students learn to value this “scientific” care over the “art” of nursing from different sources – the public fascination with emergency drama, driven by the media, other nursing professionals in their pre-registration programmes, and admittedly, from some care home placements. Nursing students still report after specialist older people placements that they did not use their technical skills and so they did not learn. Preparing care home nurses for the job Nurse education must shift from focusing on medical models of acute in-patient care, to preparing nurses for the evolving health and social care landscape. Care home nurses and nurse educators must work together to develop placement experiences for nursing students that build on their theoretical and practical knowledge. Placements should demonstrate the complexity, not just of health and social care delivery, but the physical, psychological, social and spiritual complexity of each resident. To attract future nurses, care home nurses and educators need to invest time and expertise in teaching nursing students that the art of nursing, those hidden and often undervalued skills, is integral to the best healthcare experiences and quality of life, not just of residents but of nurses themselves. Nurses in care homes require a breadth of nursing knowledge and skills that reflect current developments in health and social care. They require skills from a diverse range of specialities: medical skills to manage cardiac and respiratory conditions; community skills to help people live with long term conditions like diabetes and Parkinson’s Disease, palliative and end of life care skills and mental health skills. They are required to demonstrate leadership and critical thinking, often without the same access to immediate support that hospital nurses may have. In fact, often during the immediate onset of a resident’s health deteriorating, or a crisis in staffing or in the care home environment, the care home nurse is the sole decision maker with the accountability and responsibility for these initial decisions. Small positive changes made within care home environments can impact on every person’s lives and nurses have the flexibility to make these changes. Care home nurses, far from losing their skills have the opportunity to develop rewarding careers. The relationships developed within the “family” of the care home may be reward enough for some. Other care homes nurses may progress towards more senior posts or into clinical leadership and education. Care home nurses must be vocal about the rewarding nature of the job, the high level of responsibility and the opportunities for career progression. Care home work involves looking after those with some of the most complex care needs and care home nurses are real nurses who are educated, artful, innovative, resourceful and passionate. For more information on training for care home nurses, see dundee.ac.uk
Care worker develops her own dementia-friendly app
Care worker Heather Mead found there was a lack of apps available to engage people with dementia – so set up her own business and created a dementia-friendly game. Here, she tells Care & Nursing Essentials editor Victoria Galligan about her story and explains how animated racing fish are helping to engage the residents she works with. Heather works in a Bupa care home in Kent, having worked in care for seven years, and said: “The idea came to me on my first day working for the care home. It was having a demonstration of a sensory table mainly designed for children with special needs. The activity ladies and some carers were talking about gaming apps and how there are not that many designed specifically for the elderly or those with dementia that are easy to play. “I started thinking about how to go about developing gaming apps that are specifically for the elderly and those with dementia. As I’m studying a BA Hons in Health and Social Care with the Open University, I reached out to them for advice as to how to go about developing a gaming app – I had no coding abilities so they advised me to contact an app developer.” With the help of Easy Apps Business, and a lengthy conversation about her idea for a set of six games in total, Heather set up as a sole trader under her brand Retro Games. She invested her own money into building, maintaining and marketing the first dementia-friendly app – Retro Fish Game. Dementia-friendly app gets competitive! Heather said: “The app is a colourful fish game. The fish swims across the screen and you have to tap the fish before it gets to the other side. There is a score box and a timer to see how many fish you get in how fast a time you get them in. There are three levels and after the fifth fish the game gets quicker, it has relaxing sea sounds as background music to help a person with dementia to focus on the fish rather than getting agitated from loud background music. “Two Bupa care homes have trialled the game and the results have been good. With residents that have mild dementia, they find the game easy to play and they become quite competitive! They try to get more fish and keep going until they have played all levels. “Some residents find the easy level hard, while others can reach the hard level but often miss the fish. “The game is good in helping with residents’ interaction and conversation with each other, with the activities ladies or with relatives.” As well as boosting engagement and communication, the idea of Retro Fish Game is to: • Challenge the person playing it by exercising the mind • Test reaction times • Stimulate auditory and visual processing by helping the person to recognise patterns • Help improve and maintain cognitive skills (such as attention, perception, memory, logic and reasoning. Heather said her studies had fuelled her drive to improve the lives of people with dementia, adding: “I will be in my third year in October and I have found the course so far very enlightening. It has furthered my knowledge and broadened my perspective of health and social care – especially about ageing and how it should be seen as a lifetime experience, not just for the elderly. “Recreational activities improve the quality of life for an elderly person and those suffering from dementia in a care home or hospital setting. “As the world’s population is living longer, there is a significant gap in the research and development of recreational activities technology for the elderly or those with dementia and how it can help them to engage and be stimulated. Retro Games’ aim is to bridge that gap.” The dementia-friendly app can be found on Google Play (play.google.com) under the category ‘cognitive skills’ as Retro Fish Game, and is coming to Apple soon. The Facebook page and website retro-games-uk.com will tell you more about the game.
Future-proofing the workforce: flexible training for nurses
Sally Boyle, Head of School in the Faculty of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care at The Open University, discusses recruiting and retaining more nurses through flexible training… The UK needs more nurses; this is a simple fact. Despite the number of nurses on the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register increasing by 20,000 over the past five years, there are still 11,000 advertised vacancies for full-time nurses in the NHS in England – and while healthcare providers are understaffed, patient care is at risk. Uncertainty around nurses’ right to remain post-Brexit has seen new registrations from the EU fall from more than 10,000 in 2015/16 to just 800 in in the year 2017/18*, so it is essential we look to cultivate a more sustainable pipeline of nursing talent both within the UK itself as well as from wider sources of international recruitment. Breaking Barriers Important steps have been taken to increase the number of places available to study nursing in the UK over the past five years, but now, research in The Open University’s latest report, Breaking Barriers into Nursing, reveals that six per cent of those places went unfilled in the last current academic year. This equates to 1,450 nurses each year who could have been fully trained and ready to support the NHS within three or four years. Three in 10 young people considered studying to become a registered nurse – so it is clear that there must be significant barriers acting to deter many from doing so. Removing these barriers, or helping people to overcome them, could encourage more people to enter the profession and have a significant positive impact on the NHS. With the introduction of student loans to replace bursaries for nursing study in England, cost is undoubtedly a major disincentive to many, particularly mature students – but the associated costs (course materials, commuting, living) also pose a problem for prospective students across the UK. Along with cost, there are a number of other important issues to consider: travel, entry requirements, workload, and even the advice made available at school or college. Thankfully, however, there are a number of potential solutions to these that higher education providers and NHS employers could consider in order to improve both recruitment and retention in the sector. As a result of these barriers, many people who may be passionate about entering the profession are unable to study to become nurses, which is adding to the current crisis in nursing. It is time to reconsider the traditional idea of a ‘one size fits all’ approach to nurse education, which lacks the requisite flexibility that many of those interested in pursuing a career in the profession need. Resultantly, access to learning is limited and participation decreases. What can be done to help student nurses? It is important that we give people more options as to how, when and where they study – so that everyone who has the aptitude and values to become a registered nurse has the opportunity to do so. Currently, most higher education Institutions in the UK have entry requirements above the minimum criteria set out by the NMC. These requirements restrict access for many who want to join the profession but who may not have received good educational opportunities in the past. At The Open University, we use a robust open selection process, adhering to requirements specified by the NMC only, which means we’re able to offer places to a much more diverse range of students. With apprenticeships in England, we are starting to open up new routes into the profession, which can help to widen participation and offer continuous professional development opportunities to support staff members that aspire to become registered nurses. Enabling students to earn while they learn, apprenticeships also remove financial barriers, appealing to those concerned by the cost of study or those who would prefer to go straight into the workforce without a three or four-year period needed for study. Similarly, by embracing new technology we can deliver more flexible learning methods. Technology-enabled learning, such as that already offered by The Open University, can remove barriers for many people who would prefer to remain in their home locality to study or who are juggling other commitments. If more providers offered this, it would not only encourage more people to study nursing, it would also reduce the number of nurses who relocate back home following qualification, depriving the town or city which hosted their education of their skills and expertise. The fact that numbers of EU nurses coming to the UK to work has dramatically dropped gives us no option but to act now – we need to remove the barriers reducing our access to homegrown talent. At a time when the NHS is facing a nursing supply and demand problem, it is devastating that places remain unfilled or so many of those studying feel unable to continue, when relatively straightforward solutions could help. *The Nursing and Midwifery Council (2018) The Big Picture
Legionella, the care home menace – a coroner’s perspective
Coroner Nicholas Rheinberg writes for Care & Nursing Essentials magazine about the cases he has experienced where Legionella caused the deaths of care home residents, and details his recommendations on how to reduce risks… Should any of us have cause to consider the phenomenon of Legionnaires’ Disease we may possibly think of exotic locations abroad rather than anything that we might encounter locally. The very title conjures up pictures of desert scenes, perhaps with the odd palm tree thrown in for good measure. It may be only a few of us who associate the disease with an otherwise clean, well-run care home, nursing home or hospital. However, these are just the places where without proper precautions the legionella bacteria may thrive. “The bacterium Legionella pneumophila and related bacteria are common in natural water sources such as rivers, lakes and reservoirs, but usually in low numbers. They may also be found in purpose-built water systems such as cooling towers, evaporative condensers, hot and cold water systems and spa pools.” Alarmingly, a mains water supply may also contain legionella bacteria but whether or not this is so, any water supply may become contaminated with the bacteria. Once colonised within a water system, the bacteria will multiply at temperatures ranging from 20 to 45 degrees centigrade. It does not take a genius to realise that designing a water system to dispense water at 38 degrees centigrade so as not to scald a care home resident creates the ideal temperature to allow legionella to multiply. TMVs (thermostatic mixing valves) unless regularly cleaned and treated may be found to house colonies of legionella. The disease is contracted by breathing in droplets of water contaminated with Legionella. An aerosol effect is created when, for instance, a shower is run or even a tap turned on, allowing an individual in close contact with the water spray to inhale the bacteria. Certain individuals are more susceptible to the disease than others. The elderly, those with a compromised respiratory system or immune system are particularly at risk – in other words the typical resident of a care or nursing home. Unfortunately, the water systems in most care and nursing homes are rarely designed with legionella control and prevention in mind. Typically long lines of hot and cold water piping will be laid out in parallel with the inevitable result that hot water pipes are cooled by the cold water pipes and cold water pipes are heated by the hot water pipes rendering both liable to achieve temperatures at some point in the run within the 20 to 45 degree range. Homes espousing green credentials may use solar panels to pre-heat water but the resulting reservoir of water may well be maintained within the critical temperature range. Allowing water to stagnate creates a particular danger and so a room that is kept empty for any length of time, a toilet that is not regularly flushed or a shower that is used only occasionally may allow legionella to breed at dangerous levels. Reducing the risk of Legionella During my time as a coroner, I have had the sad duty of holding inquests into the deaths of individuals who have died of Legionnaires’ disease in what up to the time of disaster appeared to be an entirely safe domestic setting. And so what must you do as an owner or manager of a home? The HSE provides a wealth of practical advice, including the need to carry out risk assessments ensuring that as far as possible the risk is properly monitored and managed. Temperature monitoring is especially important. Legionella is dormant at temperatures under 20 degrees and is killed at temperatures over 60 degrees. If there is a suspicion that legionella may be present it may be wise to have water samples tested. This is an area where specialist input has the potential to save lives. There are many companies offering advice and assistance in relation to legionella prevention and control and arranging for such a company to inspect a home’s water system and training staff may prevent disaster and avoid the ordeal of the scrutiny of a coroner’s court and the possibility of prosecution by the Care Quality Commission to say nothing of the knowledge that your lack of appropriate precautions may have led to the death of someone in your care. by Nicholas Rheinberg, LL.B, LL.M, M.A, Dip Crim (cantab), Coroner
Three Key Tenets of Outstanding Infection Control
Ben Kilbey, Business Development Manager at Spearhead Healthcare, on achieving outstanding infection control procedures in your care home… Every care manager knows that a systematic, structured approach to cleaning is the only way to keep infections at bay and to protect residents and carers effectively – as well as your own reputation. Based on our extensive experience of helping hundreds of care homes like yours implement a best-practice infection control programme, here are our three guiding principles to set you on the right course. 1. Don’t cut corners with products It’s simply not possible to cut corners in infection control especially when it comes to the products you choose. Relying on domestic cleaning products, like furniture polish and bleach, is poor practice in care homes. It’s imperative to use BS EN1276-certified specialist products, like the ones included in our Platinum Plan, which are designed for the care environment and kill bacteria such as MRSA, Salmonella, E.Coli and the flu virus. Daily use of bactericidal and sporicidal cleaning products should be combined with a monthly deep clean, and a different set of chemical-based products are required to get an infection outbreak under control. That said, there are sensible ways of saving money without compromising on quality. For instance, providers can keep ‘cost-in-use’ to a minimum by purchasing products as concentrates, and training staff to use specialist diluting equipment correctly. As one of our customers Sophie Parker, Head Housekeeper at Dalawoodie House Nursing Home in Dumfries, reminds us: “Product overuse is as bad as underuse!” You can also take steps to consolidate chemical products, which is a key COSHH stipulation. For instance, our Multi-Surface Spray Polish is ideally suited for use on mirrors, furniture and metal surfaces such as stainless steel. 2. Get your infection control processes in shape Every process involved in cleaning the care home should be underpinned by a clearly thought-out and consistent strategy. This is where we often step in, helping homes to create and implement best-practice routines and procedures for staff, residents and visitors alike. This includes detailed guidelines for product usage and storage, usage of personal protective equipment (PPE), cost sheets, template cleaning schedules, logs and risk assessments. Delivering expert COSHH training for staff is also a core part of this. We’re strong advocates of colour-coding products, equipment and even paperwork to ensure that staff have clear visual reminders of which item to use where and which guidelines to follow. I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to include every area of the care environment in your cleaning strategy, from handwashing and laundry to fabrics (even curtains) and moving and handling equipment. 3. Take the lead on compliance Regulatory compliance in the care sector is not to be taken lightly. Thorough documentation demonstrates your commitment to maintaining the highest possible cleaning standards, strict accountability, transparency and willingness to communicate openly with all stakeholders. Indeed it will ensure peace of mind during any inspection. Rigorous documentation isn’t just for when an outbreak strikes or when you are under particular scrutiny. It may sound gloomy but it is really true that those providers who prepare for disaster will recover faster! In the event of an outbreak, you’ll need to show regulators, families and local authorities that you followed the correct procedures and did all within your means to contain it. Also, compliant record-keeping reassures everyone that you are doing everything possible to prevent it from reoccurring. Our documentation package for Platinum Plan customers provides useful templates, logs and records that all help reduce the compliance burden for busy care managers. See spearheadhealthcare.com for more advice on infection control
How social care providers can retain staff for longer
Although recruitment within the social care industry is important in order to attract the right people into your organisation, retaining good current members of staff is equally important in order to run an effective care home business. Statistics by Skills for Care estimate that every year 390,000 people leave their job in social care, which equates to 1,000 per day, leaving approximately 110,000 vacancies at any one time. Recruiting and retaining a skilled workforce, who have compatible values, can help care home organisations deliver a high quality and consistent level of care and support. Cohesion, a specialist social care recruitment company, recently surveyed care organisations on recruitment and retention. The research revealed that over half (55%) of respondents found retaining staff to be a bigger challenge than recruiting. Here Will Shepherd, CEO at Cohesion, shares his advice on how to promote better staff retention: 1. Provide role clarity – Candidates want to know the detail and if you fail to tell them up front, things can go wrong down the line. Include daily duties of the role, information about the service and team and the benefits of how to apply. It is important to highlight how the employee can make a positive difference in the advert and throughout the recruitment process – because research tells us this is the most important reason candidates will choose to apply. 2. Induction and training – When a new recruit starts working for a care home, the onboarding process is a crucial step in making them want to stay with an organisation long-term. Delivering a good induction scheme with associated training, has proven to be better than spreading training out over the first few months. Our research found that 72% of candidates surveyed at 12 weeks into their new role said that ‘opportunities to develop in and beyond their current role’ was important to them. Our research also found that 96% of all new starters who had been made to feel welcome by their manager described themselves as either ‘happy’ or ‘very happy’ in their role. It’s important to focus on other areas apart from CQC compliance training. Make it exciting by selling your business, the team and the organisation’s culture. When a new member of staff starts, shadowing and supernumerary shifts alongside existing members of staff, can have a huge impact on their confidence and enjoyment of the role. 3. Use social media – Social media is often used to attract people into a role during recruitment, but it is now having a huge impact as an engagement tool for the retention process. However, our survey revealed that 65% of social care organisations did not use social media as part of their employee retention strategy. Utilise personnel success stories across your social media channels, encouraging people to join the organisation’s community. Social media can also be used to encourage new starter recommendations – motivate, and if possible, reward staff for making candidate introductions and referrals. Consistency is key and maintaining a social media presence can ultimately make a huge impact. 4. Work-life balance in social care – Our survey revealed that 40% of people who said they were ‘very unhappy’ combined with the 32% who were ‘unhappy’, did not feel that the hours and shifts were suitable for their work-life balance or travel arrangements. The more flexible the working environment, the wider the audience of potential applicants. We are aware that this can sometimes be hard to apply within a care home, but any flexibility that you can offer in terms of shift patterns and rotas is appreciated by staff. The rewards make it worth it! 5. Listening and acting on employee feedback – By the time a member of staff is taking part in an exit interview, it is really too late to identify and solve any problems they may have faced during their period of employment. A ‘stay interview’, which takes place while an employee is still employed, provides a great opportunity to build a trusting relationship and is a chance to assess the degree of employee satisfaction and engagement. While you may not need to hold stay interviews with all employees, it’s especially important to hold them with key members of staff who might be considering a career change. Be sure to listen to your employee, take notes and action their suggestions, if they don’t feel like anything is going to change, you won’t get honest feedback. Cohesion employs some 50 recruitment experts from its headquarters in Solihull. For more information visit cohesionrecruitment.com or call 0121 713 6956. Sources: skillsforcare.org.uk/Recruitment-retention Cohesion data (2019)
British healthcare in crisis
Jonathan Bruce, Managing Director at Prestige Nursing + Care, discusses the need for politicians to focus on the future of healthcare. They say a week is a long time in politics, and the past few have seen the long-term future of British healthcare plunge deeper into uncertainty. The latest episode of this healthcare crisis was aired in May, with the news that the Social Care Green Paper was not to be published for at least another five months. It had been originally slated for Autumn 2017. What makes this issue and development particularly worrying is the supposed disagreement on how to fund the plans, between No10, the Treasury and the Department for Health, which has become so wide that there have been rumours that the Green Paper could be dropped permanently. This would be disastrous for all concerned in the care industry. Uncertain times for healthcare The change in Prime Minister will only serve to continue the confusion and stagnation surrounding the long-term healthcare plans. Can the new PM really balance the task of getting the care industry out of this crisis while getting to grips with the most important job in the country over the coming months? Moreover, the next Prime Minister will have their own agenda, ambitions, as well as people in mind to fill Cabinet positions. It’s possible that Matt Hancock won’t remain as Health Secretary beyond this leadership election, as one of his competitors may have brought in someone that aligns more with their beliefs. We have little idea of what the next Health Secretary will do with these Green Paper plans, whether they’ll support them or rip them up and start again. All this means is that the Green Paper that could do so much good for the industry will fall further and further away from seeing the light, at a time when it is needed the most. See prestige-nursing.co.uk to learn more about the healthcare provided by the group.
Future Healthcare returns to London in 2019
Future Healthcare is the UK’s only exhibition and conference showcasing healthcare products and services to a global audience. Taking place at Olympia London from 18-19 March 2019, Future Healthcare gathers more than 4,000 buyers from 65 countries for two days of education, networking and cross border purchasing. The event is organised in association with UKIHMA – a strategic partner of Healthcare UK, a UK government trade promotion organisation jointly funded by the Department for International Trade, the Department of Health and NHS England. Event Director, Dawn Barclay-Ross said: “Gathering thousands of buyers from around the world, Future Healthcare 2019 is a fantastic springboard for suppliers to find new business on the international stage.” Future Healthcare 2019 is a unique opportunity for healthcare products and service providers to showcase their solutions on a global scale. The 2018 event gathered senior buyers from the likes of Cleveland Clinic, Ministry of Health Oman, Moorfields Private Hospital, Horsens Hospital Denmark, Nelson Mandela Clinical Service for Africa, and NHS trusts from across the UK. Exhibition of 350 brands From healthcare providers and training establishments to equipment and product suppliers and technology experts, visitors can expect to see the very latest products and services from over 350 brands in the exhibition, including an extensive number of Country Pavilions. Also featuring; Thrive Wearables Zone – a showcase of the latest advancements in wearable technology and Health Tech Theatre, hosting a series of 10-minute presentations from pioneers of exciting innovations. Future Healthcare 2019’s recent Call for Innovations, provided an overwhelming number of applications for a limited number of companies to exhibit within the Innovation Pavilion and pitch to a line-up of VIP judges that drive innovation in the UK. From innovations looking at ways to solve big challenges in delivering care, to the elderly using robotics, to AI powered technology providing life-enhancing products and services. World-class conference Over 60 expert speakers will take to the stage over two days to address the central theme of ‘embracing innovation in healthcare delivery’. Sessions will address the impact of Brexit on the current healthcare landscape; helping SMEs access and work with the NHS; how to scale up innovation, and start to trade with overseas markets. Looking at the experiences of big spenders such as China and Japan, and tackle the global view of future healthcare delivery. The 2019 line up of speakers include: Matt Hancock, UK Health Secretary; Stephen Dorell, Chair of the NHS Federation; Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England; Sam Shah, Director for Digital Development, NHS England; Dr. Amanda Begley, National Director of NHS Innovation Accelerator; Dr David Parry, CEO, SEHTA and Professor Roland Schlesinger, Chief Medical Officer, Lancor Scientific. They will be discussing big issues such as: The Big Debate: a ‘re-imagined’ healthcare system. What does it look like? For further information on exhibiting, sponsoring or visiting Future Healthcare 2019, click here. The exhibition is free of charge for pre-registered visitors. Conference delegates get early bird rate if booked before November 30 2018.
