Perspectives

Learning lessons from global hospital estates

A strong and stable healthcare sector is an essential building block for modern society

 

Analysis from the NHS Confederation argues that investment and development of healthcare can directly drive economic growth. A stronger healthcare sector means a healthier population, with lower instances of long-term illness reducing productivity and economic output (GVA) per person. In addition, healthcare organisations are significant employers. Looking to the United Kingdom in particular, the NHS employs around one in every 25 working adults of whom three quarters are women.

However, we know that healthcare programmes around the world are facing significant pressures. Macro challenges such as a growing global population, the need to decarbonise and preparing for the threat of new, aggressive diseases, alongside local issues like upgrading aging estates and establishing sources of investment, present tough challenges for healthcare leadership to surmount.

It is essential that organisations develop resilience against these pressures, ensuring continuity of service for hospital communities and maintaining support for growing economies.

It can provide the pillars of a robust healthcare system, specifically in how it can respond to the increasing demand for healthcare, regenerating carbon-intensive and aging estates, as well as the need to deliver new facilities at pace to keep up with growing needs.

Through examining how different regions and markets are responding to these pressures, we can clarify how the built environment sector is an essential part of ensuring resilient healthcare estates.

In our latest healthcare paper, we explore how the built environment sector plays a substantial role in delivering resilience to the challenges healthcare organisations face. Download our latest healthcare report, Learning Lessons from Global Healthcare Estates to find out more.

Our previous healthcare paper, Delivering Hospital 2050, examined how future facing hospitals should best be delivered.