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For those people I haven’t had a chance to speak to, allow me to introduce myself as the new lead on the Healthcare practice at Interim Partners.
My background is nearly 10 years in recruitment, placing professionals of varied disciplines into a predominantly public sector client base, and now I am looking forward to focusing specifically in health.
The NHS has been a solid growth market for recruitment businesses since Labour came into power in 1997, not surprising when you consider NHS spending has tripled from £37 billion in 1997 to nearly £120 billion today, with the payroll representing 60-70% of that spend, and the fact that there has been disproportionate growth in general management staff compared to front line medical and clinical staff.
But challenging times are undoubtedly ahead, and on the face of it, it is hard to reconcile anticipated savings targets of up to £15-£20 billion by 2014 with continued and growing demand for interim managers whose services generally come at a premium. However the key challenge in the NHS will be the QIPP agenda, quality, innovation, productivity and prevention.
How can it be that for all the growth in NHS spending, the FT last month reported that productivity in the NHS has actually declined year on year since 2001? The general public need to see a return on that investment, and if spending is going to be cut in real terms over the next government spending review, we need to be getting more bang for our buck.
A more austere future in the NHS will include some unpalatable changes around rationalization, organization mergers and of course hospitals closures, which always make good front page news in the local media. The HSJ reported only last week that the drive towards new commissioning clusters designed to achieve economies and pool buying power could halve the numbers of PCTs in England.
Such large scale organizational change will certainly create demand for interim resource, and interim managers with key skill sets around project and programme management and driving through change could well find themselves in demand.
Steven Melber – Senior Consultant, Healthcare
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