Independent providers set out ten-year vision for the future

The Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN) is today publishing a new report outlining members’ vision for the future of healthcare and what it will mean for those operating in the sector

The Tomorrow’s World report is based on insights from almost 20 sector leaders and other healthcare experts. Looking at the next decade for healthcare from three perspectives – the future for patients, the operational future, and the commercial future – it identifies key developments and trends that providers expect to see in the coming years.

In terms of patients, the report says choice is likely to become a key feature of the future landscape. Increasingly, patients will exercise greater choice of who treats them and where, how they pay for care and what their pathway looks like. Central to this, will be the provision of more accessible information including around the quality of services, strong outcomes data with easy-to-navigate platforms to support and empower patients, and increased use of digital technologies, it says.

It also sets out a vision of the future where more care is shifted upstream, with a much stronger presence for independent providers in the primary and community care space. Closer integration with NHS services was also cited to ensure a seamless patient pathway – with a potential role for ‘care coordinators’ to support growing numbers of patients access care in both the NHS and independent sectors.

In addition, it forecasts development of an array of new insurance options to the meet the needs of patients who want greater choice and flexibility in how they access healthcare, including ‘PMI light’ products for parts of the pathway such as diagnostics, and an ability for employers to offer a range of insurance benefits for their workforce. The need for longer term commissioning and contracting cycles in the NHS was also identified as a way of helping unlock new investment from the sector and facilitate more ‘innovative’ care for NHS patients.

IHPN CEO David Hare (pictured) said: ‘With a new government and forthcoming ten-year plan for health, it’s the ideal time for the sector to come together and set out their vision for what the future of healthcare looks like and how they can better support increasing numbers of NHS and private patients.

‘This report sets out just some of the ways that members and sector thought leaders think healthcare delivery is likely to transform in the years ahead, whether that’s their relationships with the NHS, the way that patients as consumers seek to manage their health in new and emerging ways, or the types of care and support the sector provides.

‘While the future is not set in stone, IHPN and its members see the independent sector playing an ever more crucial role in the healthcare of the nation in the years ahead, with empowered and informed patients at its heart.’