The Week in HealthTech
The Chancellor of the Exchequer's 1-year Spending Review, delivered last week, included a welcome £1 billion boost to tackle growing waiting lists for planned care.
We are pleased to see that this critical issue is being acknowledged at the highest level, though it will require a more sustained programme of investment to overcome the scale of the challenge. The effect this is having on businesses, and therefore patients, will be evidenced tomorrow when we will share with you the results of our 'COVID impact' survey.
For this reason, restart continues to be high on our agenda and it was also a substantial topic covered at this month's Life Sciences Council meeting. We are now actively pursuing another formal engagement with NHS England, as a follow-up to our July meeting, to progress the matter.
Also last week, the NHS England Board considered a paper detailing the next steps, including proposed legislation, on the roll out of Integrated Care Systems across England, and the reform of financial flows to support it. Intuitively, this should support our sector, where a significant and persistent barrier to the uptake of innovation has been mutually dependant organisations operating in silos, but we await the enabling legislation with cautious interest.
