Partner Article

It’s not all doom and gloom in the North East’s healthcare sector: Alistair McDonald from Whickham Villa LLP explains

Unless you’ve been hiding under a big rock for the last six months, you can’t help but have noticed all the media coverage that has surrounded the healthcare sector. Whether this has been the proposed NHS cuts, changes to the role of GPs in patient care or the issues faced at Southern Cross Care Homes, the sector has been hitting the regional and national headlines. And not for the right reasons.

So is it all doom and gloom for the North-East’s healthcare sector? Not quite. In fact, small-medium business, regardless of what sector, need to be the catalysts of creativity, drive and belief to get us all out of this economic mess. An overview of what our business is doing and why may, I hope, provide some inspiration.

As a way of background, here at Whickham Villa LLP we operate Chase Park Rehabilitation Centre, Millfield House Care Home and Whickham Villa health club on the same site in Gateshead. Primarily, the clients we support on the rehab side include those with acquired brain and spinal injury as well as complex neurological conditions. We aim to provide community-based ‘step forward’ neuro rehabilitation to prepare people for a move back to independent living after a period of rehab.

As the North-East’s leading neuro-rehabilitation centre, we have been working hard at creating an entity that works for everyone involved in the equitation; public money via the NHS, ourselves as a private small business and most importantly, the client requiring rehab.

Over the last 18 months, our business in Whickham has developed a model that actually demonstrates how money can be saved by investing in rehabilitation based on evidence and improved client outcomes. This blueprint is based on using clinical specialists combined with social opportunities in the right kinds of environment (well designed, comfortable, inclusive and non-clinical) to help people move back into the community following a period of specialist treatment.

The biggest gap in the existing model is where do people move on to after rehab? This is a major problem as very few places are suitable and only a few specialist support agencies are able to support such people. Furthermore, support packages and specialist nursing home are very expensive and cost the public purse a huge amount. The answer we believe lies in transitional housing somewhere very near rehabilitation facilities.

So here lies the issue in our specific area of the healthcare sector. Do we just leave it and wait for someone else to sort it out? And this must be happening to businesses all over the region. They know where the cause of much of the pain and expense lies but feel powerless to do anything about it.

To show our commitment and belief in our model, we are currently putting the final touches to a plan that will see the launch of a second major state-of-the-art rehab facility in the region. The investment in the project will not only create jobs and provide an economic boost to the local area but will also reduce costs to the NHS and importantly, improve the care of rehab clients.

With a rehab facility, complementary health club and transitional housing provided in partnership with a registered social landlord (RSL) all on the same site, once a client is ready to move on from the residential rehab centre, they can move to a transitional housing unit on the same site and continue their step forward rehabilitation. This will therefore reduce the long term NHS and local authority-related costs and provide a pathway to further long term supportive housing provided by the RSL

Complementing local hospitals, the location of the facility will allow much quicker discharge, which in turn helps free up resource in the NHS. Furthermore, it will hugely benefit people by offering a local rehab facility with no need to travel further away.

It’s about the public and private sector working together where ultimately, the person and state’s pocket benefit. A win-win model where the long term cost to the NHS is less and the patient outcomes are much higher must be an objective for us and others to pursue. Developing successful partnerships with charitable organisations is also essential as these are key stakeholders in the equitation.

We are operate in a sector where there has been a huge amount of negative media attention, which is not that different from sectors such as construction, finance and retail to name a few. But by identifying where the issues lie, working closely and collaboratively with complementary organisations and really utilising the flexibility that SMEs have at their disposal, there are always ways to adapt and drive your business forward.

For more information please visit www.whickhamvilla.co.uk

Follow Whickham Villa www.twitter.com/WhickhamVilla

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jonny Marshall .