Organisations with large buildings that face areas with high footfall have an opportunity to increase their income through large format outdoor digital advertising (also known as digital out of home, or DOOH advertising). This involves erecting one or more large LED panels on the outside of a building and selling advertising space to commercial advertisers via a broker. The screens are updated with new adverts via 3G and 4G mobile networks, or where practical via wired connections. Shopping centres, airports and sports venues have led the way with this kind of venture, but advertising brokers are now interested in advertising on NHS buildings. Having recently completed a deal to place an 18m2 advertising screen on the outside of an NHS car park, here are my thoughts on the topic.
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In his excellent article, ‘Where did I put that …… medical record?’, Jon Atkin explained the consequences of a lost or mislaid medical record. These can include delayed or incorrect treatment and repeated or unnecessary investigations. As this can directly or indirectly lead to significant harm that is wholly avoidable through the use of digitised medical records, is it time for NHS England to add mislaid medical records to the list of never events? Under the Public Contracts Regulations 2006, healthcare contracts were within Part B and not subject to the full regulations. There was no requirement for any form of prior advertising or competitive tendering of Part B services unless there could be cross border interest (although the general obligations of transparency, equal treatment, non-discrimination and proportionality applied). Alongside PCR 2006, since April 2013, commissioners of healthcare have also had to comply with the NHS (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No. 2) Regulations 2013 (known as the section 75 regulations), which are enforceable by Monitor. This situation changed on 26 February 2015, when the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 came into force and removed the distinction between Part A and Part B services. In this short article I consider the implications of the new regulations for organisations planning to develop one of the new models of care in the Five Year Forward View (5YFV), either as a Vanguard site or fast follower, and I explain why it may be sensible to ‘commence’ a procurement, sooner rather than later. There are many articles on the benefits of digitising medical records, and there is no doubt the benefits are real. They include medical records being available instantly to multiple users, reduced operating costs, released space, a complete audit trail of who has viewed every page, increased security and disaster recovery options. These benefits are well documented and I won’t expand on them here. But having led a medical records digitisation project from concept, through business case, procurement, deployment and eventual closure of the medical records library, my observation is that the literature does not explain just how tough a medical records digitisation project really is. Here are my thoughts on the challenges. The new Public Contracts Regulations 2015 come into force today (26 February 2015) and provide an extended range of procedures, compared to the previous 2006 Regulations. The open, restricted and competitive dialogue procedures remain (with some refinement), the negotiated procedure is replaced by a competitive procedure with negotiation, and an entirely new procedure called ‘Innovation Partnership’ has been introduced. Read on to explore the opportunities this presents. The future of pathology services has been a hot topic since the Carter reviews of 2006 and 2008. Modern pathology technology breaks down the traditional demarcations between laboratory disciplines and allows for automation of pre and post analytical processes, but this kind of modern technology requires large scale pathology operations serving more than one hospital and its local GPs. Pathology consolidation has happened across large parts of Europe and in some other continents, leading to some large pathology organisations with state of the art automation, significant purchasing power and expertise. There are now signs that the UK is starting to follow this path. Having recently set up a pathology joint venture in Essex involving two NHS Foundation Trusts and a private sector pathology provider, here are my top tips and issues to consider for anyone thinking of outsourcing pathology or setting up a joint venture. |
Mark Magrath MBAI am a management consultant with 12 years experience as an executive director in an NHS Foundation Trust, including 10 years as Deputy Chief Executive. I only write blogs on projects and assignments that I have personally led. My aim is to write amazing content that combines real world experience with insightful advice. Categories
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August 2021
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