Deborah J. Bowen, IHF President-Designate and President and CEO of the American College of Healthcare Executives shares insights on how the healthcare community can overcome the stacked challenges the COVID-19 pandemic brought.

Managing COVID-19 has been extremely challenging for hospitals and health systems around the globe. The IHF has organized the “Facing the crisis” webinar and live Q&A series to share experiences, good practices, insights, and lessons learnt from their members, partners and other organizations.

This series has been created with healthcare providers for healthcare providers including decision makers and those who are involved in preparing for and managing the crisis.

The Health Care Transformation Leadership Program is a collaboration program between the Australian Centre for Value-Based Healthcare, the Australian National University and the Value Institute for Health & Care at the University of Texas in Austin. It is aimed at supporting health leaders implementing value-based health care programs, and includes case studies from Europe, the USA and Australia.  This program is held online and will be offered over 6 months from July this year. To get the discount code, please contact the IHF Secretariat (ihf.secretariat@ihf-fih.org). ​​​​​​​

IHF Congratulates Honorary Member, René Peters who has been awarded a Knighthood (Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau) at the occasion of the annual Royal Honours List in the Netherlands. The knighthood was awarded because of several merits in his longstanding career. As executive of a general hospital he introduced several innovations in healthcare that are now the common standard in Dutch practice.  Amongst which the realization of single room maternity units, a closed format intensive care with 24/7 care by intensivists and a joined facility for general practitioners to provide care out of regular hours. 

The NHS Confederation is focused on supporting members – including hospitals, community and mental health providers, ambulance trusts, primary care networks and clinical commissioning groups – to deliver for patients and local communities. We do this in four ways:

• Inform members about the changing health and care landscape in a concise and accessible way.
• Represent the views of members, giving a voice to their expert knowledge and concerns at the highest levels.
• Influence the development of policy relevant to members through gathering feedback and engaging with decision makers.
• Support members to share ideas, insights and best practice, and by providing a platform for leaders to network and come together.

The NHS employs around 1.5 million people across the UK, making it the fifth largest employer in the world.

Health has been a devolved matter since 1999, with all four parts of the UK – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – entirely responsible for legislation and policy relating to health. As a result, while the NHS is based on common principles throughout the UK, the structure in each jurisdiction is distinctive. While health and social care is delivered within different legislative frameworks and structures, across the UK the NHS faces similar challenges.

Indirectly, though, ultimate responsibility for NHS funding could be said to reside with the UK parliament. As the NHS is financed mainly through taxation, it is the UK parliament which distributes funds to the Scottish parliament and the devolved assemblies, although how much of that is devoted to health is a matter for local determination.

As chief executive of the NHS Confederation, I lead an organisation which supports the United Kingdom’s most cherished institution: the National Health Service (NHS). We bring together and speak on behalf of organisations that plan, commission and provide NHS services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Through our networks in England and our operations in Wales and Northern Ireland, we represent the wide variety of organisations in the NHS and as such, are well placed to articulate the interests of the healthcare system.

In England, we also run NHS Employers, a support service for NHS organisations who together form the nation’s largest employer. In addition, we have a small international team which focuses on the NHS’s links with other health systems and which operates the NHS’s European Office in Brussels, which has been concerned with EU legislation and more recently on the health implications of the UK’s decision to leave the EU.