The government has published the 10 Year Health Plan that it says will deliver ‘radical change’ in the NHS and create a more local, more personalised experience for patients.
The plan, titled Fit for the Future, is a big document. Online, it runs to more than 160 pages, across nine sections, an executive summary, and an afterword by Health and Social Care secretary Wes Streeting. So, it’s important to find a way in.
One of the things that struck me was a panel a third of the way through, which talks about using digital to improve financial sustainability, by doing more work in the community and digitally, to reduce reliance on traditional — but expensive — care pathways.
To make its case, the panel draws a parallel with the changes we have seen in other areas of our lives over the past 20 years. It says that ‘in other industries, digital technology has fundamentally disrupted the status quo […] listening to music no longer requires the manufacture of a physical CD, its distribution to shops, or the costs of physical retail space. Higher convenience, at a far low unit cost’.
Built to support digital delivery
Why did this panel stand out? Well, Spark TSL was created to bring about exactly this disruption. We set out to deliver Wi-Fi to areas where it was hard to deploy, and to help businesses to use that connectivity to deliver digital services to their users.
We started out in marinas and now work in shopping centres and conference centres. If you’ve logged into free Wi-Fi at an event, via a homepage filled with location information, that could well have been us. But we have developed a specialist health practice since we started working with a major London trust 20 years’ ago.
Almost every hospital trust and health board in England and Scotland now uses Spark Connect Wi-Fi, our patient engagement solution, or the bedside units that we acquired with Hospedia, towards the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are also starting to see Trusts adopt the Spark Fusion platform that we have been promoting into the NHS, since acquiring and enhancing it from the Sentean Group in the Netherlands, where it is used by leading hospitals to put productivity and patient apps into the hands of staff and patients.
For example, the Jeroen Bosch Ziekenhuis in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, has rolled out Spark Fusion on 600 Apple iPads. The development has streamlined workflows and enabled the hospital to achieve top wellbeing ratings by prioritising patient health and satisfaction.
Analogue to digital
Another reason that the panel stood out is that it shows the move from analogue to digital is not a one off. One innovation tends to lead to others. It was the digitisation of music, so it could be burned onto a CD, that paved the way for the streaming services we use today.
What changed was the delivery mechanism: eventually the CD was released in 1982, and Spotify didn’t arrive for another quarter of a century. Back in the day, the Hospedia units were revolutionary. They did away with payphones in hospital corridors and TVs that had to be wheeled onto wards, so every patient could watch the same programme.
However, those units date from the era of the CD, and they have had their time. Since we acquired Hospedia, we have been encouraging Trusts and their charities to consider the role of the ‘patient pays’ model. We have also been encouraging organisations to work with us to provide additional functionality that will make the lives of staff and patients better.
Now, we are planning to ‘end of life’ the old units next year. As we do that, organisations will still be able to use the valuable infrastructure that sits behind the units to deliver entertainment, communication, and information to patients. It’s just that it will happen using modern bedside carts, iPads, and patients’ own devices.
At some points, the 10 Year Health Plan implies the NHS has got stuck on paper and needs to adopt digital technology. I think the NHS has been using digital for as long as other sectors; but its adoption has been patchy and, in some areas, it has got stuck on old technology.
That means organisations need to think ahead. As Trusts and their IT departments look to respond to Fit for the Future, they will need the right technology partners. Suppliers that can not only install new IT, but maintain, refresh, and build on it.
At Spark TSL, we know that by 2035 we will have refreshed the iPads that we are putting into Trusts now at least twice; and we can predict that we will be running apps that haven’t yet been thought of, as requirements evolve.
Change tech, change relationships
The move from CDs to streaming didn’t just change the distribution mechanism for music. It changed people’s relationship with it. Today, people can compile playlists of the songs that matter to them, and get suggestions tailored to their needs — from working out to relaxing.
In the Netherlands, the Jeroen Bosch Ziekenhuis is already using Spark Fusion to engage patients and give them more control. Its iPads give patients access to a meal ordering app that reduces waste by enabling them to order food that fits with their tastes and condition, thanks to integration with administrative and clinical systems.
The devices also provide patients with information about their treatment, discharge and rehabilitation. Patients can download the Fusion app onto their own devices and take digital leaflets, medicines advice, physiotherapy exercises, and other information home with them.
Spark Fusion can also support modern call systems that allow patients to indicate what they need, before a busy member of staff heads for their bedside. It also allows for environmental control apps that enable patients to control light or ventilation in their rooms. All that’s in addition to the video calling, TV, and entertainment packages that are already in use in the NHS.
Increased engagement and control can help patients to achieve the best possible outcome and reduce the risk of costly readmission. Which, of course, fits with the other two shifts that the 10 Year Health Plan wants to see, from hospital to community, and treatment to prevention.
The plan says it is ‘boosting operational productivity’ that will enable the NHS to ‘restore constitutional waiting time standards and deliver increasingly innovative care’. But it argues it is ‘more precise prevention, and the information and tools that patients need to more actively participate in their own care’, that will reduce demand in the long term.
What I take from this is that Trusts don’t just need to go from analogue to digital, they need to find the technology that will support productivity, excite staff, and engage patients.
Spark TSL is supporting lighthouse deployments of our latest technology, and one of the first English hospitals to deploy Spark Fusion has run a survey that has demonstrated that 80 per cent of patients are finding it easier to find educational content. The platform is putting information in patients’ hands so they can act on it.
Feedback loops
Speaking of surveys — the 10 Year Health Plan outlines a new role for patient feedback. It says this could be used alongside league tables to support patient choice and that it could influence the rates hospitals are paid for treatment.
Our technology facilitates the collection of patient feedback. It can be used to run statutory surveys, cutting costs and driving-up completion rates. Hospitals have also had considerable success in using our dedicated charity banner to encourage patients to support their charities, and spread the word about the great work that they do.
However, that is just a small part of the picture. The big piece is to seize the opportunities presented by digital to modernise health and care delivery and improve both staff and patient experience in the process. To do that, Trusts and health boards need find the right digital partner, with the right technology, and the vision to evolve that technology over time.
The sheer scale of the 10 Year Health Plan can make NHS transformation look like a daunting task, particularly when the NHS is under huge financial and demand pressure. That is why that panel is my way in. It shows that digitally enabled change is possible, and that its benefits accumulate over time.
With focus, we can deliver the ‘higher convenience, lower unit cost’ services to the NHS that we have come to expect and value in our day to day lives.