NHS Culture
Over the past 5 years, the MTG has commissioned and launched a range of reports on issues within the NHS that cause barriers in access to medical technologies for patients, delay patient ability to get the right treatment at the right time in the right place, or practices which don’t include the experiences, perspectives and input from patients.
Throughout this time, we have found that ‘culture’ is a determining factor in how many NHS bodies (both nationally and locally) deliver for patients across the country.
How can we overcome these challenges and create a culture of innovation that can transform the NHS?
This is the issue we are investigating through the Medical Technology Group’s Commission on NHS Culture for innovation and technology.
This will be built on what we see, hear and encounter across the system – speaking to everyone from senior policy makers to local trusts alongside clinicians, innovators and patients across the system to work out what we do best and how to scale it.
Driving Collaboration: The Role of Culture, Structures and Finance in Reforming the NHS
The NHS is entering a period of profound change. Alongside the reforms contained within the Health Bill, the Government has set out a vision for a health service built around three shifts: moving care from hospitals into communities, moving from sickness to prevention, and using digital technologies to enable both.
These ambitions are not new. Successive governments have recognised the need to reduce reliance on acute care, improve population health and make better use of technology. What is different is the scale of the challenge. Rising demand, workforce pressures, financial constraints and widening health inequalities mean that incremental change is unlikely to be sufficient.
Delivering these ambitions will require more than new organisational structures. It will require a fundamentally different way of working across the health and care system.
Measuring Value in NHS Procurement of Health Technologies: From Cost Containment to Accountable, Outcomes-driven adoption
The new MTG report, Measuring Value in NHS Procurement of Health Technologies, finds that NHS procurement remains focused on short-term cost rather than the impact a technology can have on a patient’s life, and that this mismatch, not clinical disagreement, is the main driver of the ongoing postcode lottery in access to medical technology across England.
Despite a stated commitment to outcomes-driven care, purchasing decisions remain shaped by short-term cost, with the system lacking the accountability and data to recognise technologies that speed up recovery, support independence and help patients return to normal life. This, the report warns, is contributing to suppliers withdrawing products from the NHS market altogether.
Rebuilding Accountability in a Changing NHS: A Review of ICB Leadership, Innovation and Patient Outcomes
A key part of changing the culture in the NHS is the need for proper accountability within the system. Without clear lines of responsibility, robust oversight and a willingness to learn from best practice, patients risk falling through the cracks of a system that is already under pressure.
Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) were intended to bring greater clarity and consistency, but we know from experience that change can also embed variation. That is why the MTG has undertaken this work: to shine a light on where accountability is working well, and where it still needs to be strengthened.
A System that Learns: Embedding best practice across the NHS
The Medical Technology Group’s Commission on Culture set out to investigate how organisational culture affects the adoption of innovation, the use of data, and the delivery of services. This report focuses on Best Practice and how effective models and technologies are identified, measured, and shared across the health system for the benefit of patients and those who work in the NHS.