NHS ENGLAND (JUNE 2022): “The c100,000-strong Estates and Facilities Management (EFM) team across England, representing 8% of the NHS workforce, are core to delivery of all NHS services. Every day, our EFM teams across the country, which include cleaners, porters, catering, security, engineering, capital delivery and maintenance staff, work alongside clinicians to ensure patients get the care they need.….There are some 300 distinct roles within NHS EFM, and the employment arrangements are similarly varied: 66% of people directly employed by the NHS, 27% outsourced to service delivery partners and 7% employed by NHS wholly owned subsidiaries. These are split across Hard Facilities Management (15%), Soft Facilities Management (77%) and Leadership, Management and Support (7%) roles.”
As we begin to emerge from a global pandemic, many of us are asking what the ‘new normal’ will look like for our hospitals and healthcare facilities and the many thousands of people that keep them running smoothly.
In tackling the daily demands of managing a 21st century healthcare environment; Facilities Management and ‘Soft FM’ directors, leaders and teams are tasked with implementing financial, time and resource savings; improving integrated team-working; and collectively taking their next steps on the road to a ‘Net-Zero NHS’.
These major challenges illustrate the unique role of Healthcare Facilities Management in ensuring the functionality, efficiency and cleanliness of our healthcare environments that are so essential to the long-term resilience of hospital patient service delivery.
All these key themes – and many more – will be addressed at the only conference designed exclusively for healthcare facilities management