Latest / Embedded / What Value-Based Healthcare Actually Looks Like in Practice | Embedded Conversations With David Thorne. Ep 7
Transcript
- 0:02Welcome to Embedded Conversations, the podcast that explores what it takes to
- 0:06embed ideas, innovations and partnerships inside the NHS.
- 0:10I'm Scott McKenzie and I work with NHS leaders, commissioners and life science
- 0:15companies to change patient pathways for the better.
- 0:18This podcast brings those ideas to life through shared stories from people inside
- 0:22the system who talk honestly about what works, what doesn't and what it takes
- 0:26to embed change in the real world.
- 0:28If you're working in, around or with the NHS and you want to understand how
- 0:33change really happens, you're in the right place.
- 0:35Hi everyone, welcome to the latest edition of Embedded Conversations where I
- 0:40am genuinely delighted to welcome today's guest, David Thorne.
- 0:45David is one of those really rare NHS leaders who manages to be quietly influential
- 0:52would be my observation he's very consistent in his thoughtfulness,
- 0:56and refreshingly honest about the realities going on inside the system particularly
- 1:01when it comes to system change.
- 1:03In fact i often get people joke with me they never see david and scott in the
- 1:08same room and yet here we are today and finally we're going to do a podcast together
- 1:14now what makes this even more interesting is for those of you that follow david
- 1:18on linkedin you'd have picked up what i picked up a couple of weeks ago he's just entered
- 1:23his 46th year working in the nhs which in itself,
- 1:27is remarkable even more remarkable is that despite everything,
- 1:32the service has faced david remains deeply engaged optimistic when it matters,
- 1:38and unafraid to call out the things that really determine whether,
- 1:41systems succeed or stall in that post david really reflected on how polarized
- 1:48the NHS feels right now with some places racing ahead embracing opportunity
- 1:53and collaboration while others are really stuck and remain stuck.
- 1:57I think his conclusion was really characteristically simple, but really powerful.
- 2:03Progress ultimately comes down to trust, to be the ability to compromise and
- 2:08teamwork across the NHS and many tribes and organisations that have to come together to do that.
- 2:15Now, today, I'm going to be talking to David about one of the things that he's
- 2:19been a real long-standing advocate for,
- 2:22which is value-based healthcare and outcome-focused commissioning using real
- 2:27data including tools like plix so we're going to move into conversations way
- 2:32beyond the rhetoric and actually into to practical and.
- 2:36Deliverable outcomes so let's see where we go risk sharing value-based partnerships
- 2:42and what good really looks like david it is an absolute pleasure to get you
- 2:47on today and i'm really delighted that you've come to talk to us,
- 2:50thank you very much that's very kind of you no it's just a a realistic reflection
- 2:55of the david that i know and and respect completely i've known you for a very
- 2:59long time always had complete respect for you and
- 3:02i've just tried to reflect that but that linkedin post really did catch my eye
- 3:06because it was absolutely honest,
- 3:08that to in fact i was talking about this to alison oliver who i think you might know as well alison's at,
- 3:15the podcast guests, and we were talking about that,
- 3:18that to do the collaboration, you have to be prepared to forgo a little bit of your independence.
- 3:24You've got to let that go and trust that the neighbourhood or the network or
- 3:28the federation is going to act in your best interest. So it was just a really
- 3:32good reflection of what you'd said.
- 3:35Yeah. And what else I just wanted to add, Scott, for our friends out there,
- 3:40is I'll be very practical today. Yes.
- 3:44I know the questions, or I can guess the questions you're going to ask me.
- 3:47Well, I think it's very difficult at the moment for people out there,
- 3:50given all the chaos that's going on, to separate the rhetoric from the reality.
- 3:54Oh, totally. And if you're a key account manager for a company,
- 3:57what do you actually do? Yes.
- 4:00You know, it's a great opportunity for me to listen to you as well, Scott.
- 4:03Both of us are practical people yes practical advice can we give to people okay
- 4:08that's what we try and do we try and keep it really grounded and practical so,
- 4:12um let's start then let's let's dive in so you have been,
- 4:17and it's one of the things i picked up from you really early when i got to know
- 4:20you been a real advocate for value-based health care so from your perspective,
- 4:26what needs to happen for outcome-based contracts to move from that kind of pilot
- 4:30phase to be business as usual in the NHS?
- 4:33And is there a role for industry to really get involved and engaged in accelerating that transition?
- 4:40Yeah, I agree, and I think it'd be really easy for someone out there or someone
- 4:44in marketing or in a heavy office function to think, well, I've heard it all
- 4:48before, and where's the evidence of it?
- 4:51But firstly, I used to work in industry, carry the bag.
- 4:55I can remember selling in an outcome-based contract, wait for it,
- 4:58in 1997, okay? These things can happen.
- 5:03It can happen if the right ingredients are there. So I think what's going to
- 5:08run through a lot of my responses today is segmentation, is finding the right partners.
- 5:13You need to find people who've got that strategic breadth. So which accounts
- 5:17are moving further on integration?
- 5:20Just to pick up what Scott was saying at the start, don't think that was just
- 5:24his nice introduction. There's some really salient points in there around which
- 5:28areas on your accounts or nationally, where does that trust exist?
- 5:33Yeah where's some examples already that people work across primary secondary,
- 5:38tertiary care gp practices can compromise people can let you use premises where
- 5:44you've got that kind of flexibility you might even start soon to see posts,
- 5:49i i was at a meeting locally in my role i met two young women uh both consultants
- 5:54and uh what do they expect to be clinical directors of integrated services,
- 5:59one for diabetes, one for respiratory. There you go.
- 6:02So where are the areas moving in that kind of direction?
- 6:05So there's some heavy segmentation, keep the faith, other stuff that I'm sure
- 6:10we're going to get into, Scott.
- 6:11Where does informatics exist that allow this to happen?
- 6:16But I would immediately look for areas where there's local variations,
- 6:22traditional contracts, and there's plenty of those.
- 6:24Yes. Where people have used their imagination, or whether there's been cross-francy
- 6:30working across organizations. Okay?
- 6:32It doesn't have to be in the same specialty that you work in.
- 6:35It could be in oncology, and you're working fine. But if there's a local precedent,
- 6:41that's one that you can use. That's key. Yeah.
- 6:44Get beyond the strategic stuff and think a little bit tactically about people's
- 6:48relationships and some of the basic things they need.
- 6:50One of the things they might need, it could be as simple as someone saying,
- 6:54I can fund a meeting room one afternoon.
- 6:57We'll get everyone together for a couple of hours. We'll put on some sandwiches.
- 7:01I'm not trying to trivialize the role of key account managers or companies,
- 7:05but this is where you come in.
- 7:06You can just do that final thing that brings people together across sectors. Yes.
- 7:12Totally. I think there's a few things there that I just want to go back and
- 7:15pick up with you, because I think you've absolutely nailed something that I'm
- 7:19absolutely passionate about when I'm working with industry and advising them. Look for track record.
- 7:25And it doesn't need to be the service that you're working with.
- 7:28It can just be the fact that the hospital trust or the GP federation or the
- 7:32neighborhood team or the network have got a track record of partnering,
- 7:36collaborating, working with industry, outcome-based contracts.
- 7:39Look for track record. It's a great indicator.
- 7:42Previous behavior is a good indicator of what likely future behavior is going to be.
- 7:47Yeah, and just to reiterate the part, I think you agree, Scott.
- 7:50It could be in mental health, and you work in a totally different area. Yeah.
- 7:56You'd be surprised how much of that is transferable.
- 8:00Yeah. And that's what helps you to take away the obvious obstacles about people
- 8:04worrying about risks and things like that, which is a classic,
- 8:07I just think. So keep the faith.
- 8:10It is possible. People want it to happen. And there are no local examples of it happening already.
- 8:14Yeah, yeah. Brilliant. Absolutely great answer, David. Really spot on and very
- 8:19aligned with my thinking.
- 8:21If I move it on just a little step further, again, one of the other things that
- 8:26comes up a lot in my work is risk sharing agreements, sometimes called gain share.
- 8:31Long discussed, relatively still rare in practice. I've had a couple in my work
- 8:37over time, but not for a while.
- 8:39What do you see as the kind of key ingredients for a risk-share model?
- 8:43And what are the pitfalls that both NHS and industry have absolutely got to avoid?
- 8:49Yeah, and I think the first one of it is picking up immediate theme.
- 8:54I wasn't expecting it to be so immediate, which is just about simple clarity and honesty.
- 9:00What I look for, once you get beyond the pages of compliance documentation,
- 9:04when I'm looking at a potential project.
- 9:07Let's do it simply. Let's imagine I work in a primary care network, say. What do I put in?
- 9:13What does the company put in? What's the risk to each of us?
- 9:17What I often hear on these occasions is all kinds of hypotheticals of risk.
- 9:22And when you actually play it through, it's not a nice phrase, war game.
- 9:27If you war game it through, the risk is actually quite marginal.
- 9:30And you can build in the contingencies around that.
- 9:33So people tend to be scared about all kinds of things that probably won't happen
- 9:37anyway, whether it's to clearly separate them into compartments.
- 9:42What's the clinical risk?
- 9:43Is it a financial risk? Is it a risk to reputations in some way?
- 9:48And to be really clear about specifying them and get very simple on the language.
- 9:54And then I think they can usually be resolved. But invariably,
- 9:59it starts off with the thing I started off with.
- 10:01What do you want us to do? So do we have to supply a training day?
- 10:05Do we have to supply an advanced time?
- 10:08If it goes over budget, what exactly?
- 10:13So that's the question I ask all the time, is be precise, be excellent,
- 10:17what game it through, and then you find out it's a lot simpler and less risky than people think.
- 10:23I think you've made, again, a really good point that often we look at it in totality.
- 10:29I liked your word that you used earlier, segment it what's the clinical risk
- 10:32what's the financial risk what's the path look at it in step by step and actually
- 10:38address each of the concerns as
- 10:39you go and it's much easier to take people with you than if you it's like,
- 10:44i suppose like follow a bit like following a recipe we know what we want at
- 10:48the end but it doesn't start out like that it's all the individual ingredients
- 10:52are totally segmented until you mix them.
- 10:55Yeah, and you've got to remember from an industry point of view that the people
- 11:00in NSS side, just how many people they've got to bring together. Totally.
- 11:04And they sometimes underestimate on your side the number of moving parts on
- 11:09your side, the compliance and managing and the changes you're going through as a company.
- 11:14So just be honest about those at the start.
- 11:17My final bit of advice on all of that is to be careful.
- 11:22Is is to um it's much more successful to be modest in in europe yeah so
- 11:28there's a temptation people sit in front of me and say we can do this we can
- 11:32do that and it will get um i don't know some opportunity cost benefit to um
- 11:37your organization i've gone great you sold it to me
- 11:40oh and then it will get people back to work and it will um it will alleviate the pressures of brexit,
- 11:45yeah or to stop trees being cut down, and he's like, whoa, whoa,
- 11:49whoa, hang on a minute. I was happy where I was.
- 11:52Yeah, and let's focus on that, and let's not spread the decision space too much.
- 11:58Yeah. Just to keep it very, anyway. So it seems to be a favourite word of mine
- 12:02at the moment. It's about precision.
- 12:04Let's just be precision. I think that's a good word.
- 12:07I do think that's a good word because, I mean, one of the observations I make
- 12:11about certainly working with general practice just now, but the whole of the NHS,
- 12:15We're drowning in workload. We haven't got the people to meet the demand.
- 12:19So yes, we want innovation, but that innovation has to be without adding extra
- 12:24work, extra steps, or any extra complexity.
- 12:28If you do any of those things, you can almost see people going,
- 12:31that's not for me, because it's adding.
- 12:34It's what we want to know. It's what are we taking out, really, is where we want to go.
- 12:37That's great. And my final point, you just reminded me of something I would
- 12:40say in all these things, is be very clear at the start with somebody.
- 12:44Set yourself a time limit.
- 12:46And say, okay, it's the 20th of January. If we, on both our sides,
- 12:50if we can't get this progressed by the 4th of March, we're going to walk away
- 12:55and we're going to agree to walk away.
- 12:57I think that's a really good point. Everybody out there will say,
- 13:00oh, I've been involved in stuff that's been a couple of years and it goes in
- 13:03and that and goes right. Yeah, set yourself a time and give some urgency and put some lids on it.
- 13:09It's a great, again, another great point because the number of times I'll hear,
- 13:13oh, we've got X number of projects And I'm like, yeah, but how many of them,
- 13:17are really within that two-month window? How many of them are six months,
- 13:20nine months, 12 months or more? You can't really count them.
- 13:23And yet we have that habit. We do count them. Yeah. Right. Good.
- 13:29Again, one of the other things that, so this is, again, learning from David,
- 13:34one of the things I did right back at the beginning, in fact,
- 13:37one of the first times I met you in Newcastle when you were on the commissioning
- 13:40side of the fence, and I took this away, and I've really embedded it in my work all the way through,
- 13:45is what we commonly call PLICS, patient level information costing system.
- 13:51What Scott in simple terms says is costing every step in the pathway not in
- 13:56theory but in practice patient level so we can see where the resources are actually
- 14:01being used where variation sits and what really changes,
- 14:05when outcomes improve so how do you believe plics could probably be more effectively,
- 14:11used to underpin outcome-based contracts the risk sharing agreements that we're talking about,
- 14:16particularly if we're going to justify cost or impact of innovative medicines
- 14:21and devices where do you see that fitting,
- 14:24well firstly you've done a service to everyone scott because there'll be people
- 14:27out there saying i've never heard of plix despite the fact as we're saying you
- 14:30know you and i've been around a long time it's been around a long time,
- 14:33yeah yeah um the the the basic point is if i'm looking to write a business case
- 14:39i don't use has data i I use Plix data. You're like me. Okay.
- 14:43HES is available. I'm not knocking the people who've got it and supply it.
- 14:47It's sometimes the most easily accessible or the only accessible source for people in industry.
- 14:54But it's price data, it's not cost data. Yes.
- 14:58So the example that Scott's talking about, there's a maternity unit on my locality.
- 15:03If they were in payment by results, they would get, what, about 1,000 quid to deliver a baby.
- 15:09Right. The real cost of a baby being born at that unit is 23,000 pounds.
- 15:14Well, look at that. Because it's the cost of running a unit in a small rural
- 15:17area. Yeah, of course. By the number of women who have a baby there. Yeah.
- 15:21So, cost and price are different things. Yeah. So, when you're looking at business
- 15:25case, the real costs are important.
- 15:29You can also differentiate yourself. a top tip if you're an account manager
- 15:33and you're going to a hospital you talk to people and you say well look i haven't
- 15:36seen it but what's your clicks position yes yes already you're different from
- 15:41the average bear and it'd be really interesting what people say to you
- 15:44it's not fantastic information don't be put off by people saying oh it's not
- 15:49perfect it is still it's the best we've got that's it the nhs data and that's
- 15:54what the chief execs and people like that,
- 15:56look at okay so i like scott i really advocate you use plix data it's fundamental um.
- 16:03It's used across the community it's used across mental health issues and used
- 16:06in ambulance and the ambulance plix data is particularly useful for pharma but
- 16:11that's there we are there's a top tip for you that's a great tip i'm always
- 16:15interested in the ambulance data it's uh uh,
- 16:17going back to the p word it's much more precise,
- 16:21so if you're looking at something like diabetic hypos you've got to look at
- 16:25the ambulance PIX data because if I have a hypo in the street it's the ambulance
- 16:31service who's going to come and look at me and not necessarily show up elsewhere so you,
- 16:36could talk about PIX all day if you're not familiar with it find out about it
- 16:41if you are familiar with it,
- 16:43Keep going because you can get Plix data. I won't name the company,
- 16:48but I know there's a company in surgical devices used to value proposition.
- 16:52They quoted Plix data, used it appropriately in reference, and it made a big
- 16:56difference to their sales.
- 16:59It's fundamental, as Scott says. If you're looking at the outcome-based,
- 17:03if you're looking at setting your risk levels, if you're trying to work out the benefits.
- 17:07I mentioned something, opportunity cost benefit before.
- 17:10So what's the cost of a district nurse going out and fixing a wound,
- 17:15rural area or in inner city, they're going to differ aren't they they're going to differ whether it's,
- 17:21somebody who's housebound with six other conditions or whether it's somebody
- 17:25who's 32 and got a sports injury and they just need a quick dressing on their
- 17:30leg temporarily Plixtata reflects that.
- 17:34I'm with you it is brilliant data I'm finding it more and more,
- 17:39and people are interested from an nhs side and what are all the steps in the
- 17:43pathway because we hear a lot at the time well i certainly pick it up in my
- 17:46work i have to do this because it's the cheapest option and i'm always is it,
- 17:51is it actually the cheapest option because a lot of the time without being rude,
- 17:56we end up comparing bananas with cucumbers because we're just looking at the
- 18:00acquisition cost of one drug one device over the other we're not looking at,
- 18:05does it deliver the patient outcome that I'm trying to deliver,
- 18:08extra steps, extra complexity, duplication, avoidable waste.
- 18:13We don't factor those in. We, well, the people are a number of times I hear,
- 18:16oh, well, the people are there anyway, yes, but what could they be doing?
- 18:20If the pathway was much smoother, it's that opportunity. Entirely,
- 18:24you and I are very passionate about medicine and devices. When you look at Plex
- 18:28data, they come out in the context of a woman having a baby and it costs 23,000,
- 18:33right? That's an extreme example.
- 18:35What medicine or dressing or what sutures that lady has, that's immaterial when
- 18:40it costs $23,000, right?
- 18:42But you even bring it down to things like, I mean, obvious example of generic statins, you know? Yes.
- 18:48Somebody, a company the other day, a director of a company said to me,
- 18:51I won't name what it was, it was a device.
- 18:54And she said, the only problem with this is expensive.
- 18:57You know, don't use that word. But how much is it? Well, it was about 70 quid.
- 19:02You go back to when you mentioned when
- 19:04we first met Scott, when I was the commissioner. Yeah. 70 quid is free.
- 19:09Right you don't worry about anything that costs less the health care is so phenomenally expensive,
- 19:14so you can educate your customers if they knew that there is a drug or device
- 19:18and it costs a few quid more than something else but as scott's saying what
- 19:22could achieve is a length of stay reduction yeah or it could free up um time
- 19:27of a doctor or nurse yeah it doesn't
- 19:28have to empty a bed it doesn't have to make a redundancy,
- 19:31if it can produce that productivity benefit it so plix,
- 19:35if you only remember one thing from scott's great podcast.
- 19:39Plix is the friend of farmer and life sciences it really is it really is it
- 19:45helps to prove your value proposition totally i,
- 19:48without getting again i'm like you don't want to name customers or that but i had one recently where,
- 19:53we're looking at a pathway and we were able to eliminate 12 weeks of the patient
- 19:58being seen once a week for 12 weeks with a change in the in the product because what it meant was,
- 20:05where we went from half of them not responding to treatment we went to one in
- 20:08ten not responding to treatment so a huge workload release but all it had been done was,
- 20:14that's more expensive than that yeah but you're not looking at the workload
- 20:17that goes with it once we'd established that with a completely different outcome
- 20:21but it was complex data that showed it yeah and it really shows up things like
- 20:25I was chatting with the practice nurse earlier,
- 20:27who's master level nurse practitioner.
- 20:29So quite rightly, she'd be getting 60 odd thousand a year.
- 20:33She's talking about a change they've made in the practice. The healthcare assistants
- 20:36do it now. Okay. So they're getting paid less than half of it.
- 20:39That is the benefit that public starts to show up. Yeah, absolutely.
- 20:43I couldn't agree more, David. I could not agree more.
- 20:47If I, again, move the conversation on a little bit, from an industry perspective.
- 20:52I get lots of but like you do we get lots of contact from the industry about
- 20:57where should i focus my efforts you get a lot of people where they're totally focused on icbs,
- 21:03at system level we've got others that work at provider level i'm thinking more
- 21:07provider collaborative i've got people that will just focus at neighborhood level or pcn level,
- 21:12where should we focus if we're going to make a outcome-based partnership i'm
- 21:16going to get a slightly different answer go on then so you You should focus on,
- 21:21the people who are most able to respond to what you're going to say.
- 21:24And so you've really got, I mentioned at the start about segmentation.
- 21:31Broadly, I'll be interested in what you think, Scott. 10 to 20% of the NHS,
- 21:36which is progressing at the moment, going ahead.
- 21:38I'd agree. The opportunities of what we're going through. And the rest is stuck.
- 21:42I'm not having a go at people because there's reasons why they might be stuck.
- 21:48I'm in an ICB that is not changing very much. That's not the case elsewhere.
- 21:53There's different financial pressures or CQC pressures and other things like that.
- 21:56But you need to find the people, the right people. Now, they could be at neighborhood.
- 22:03I was actually just talking to somebody who's leaving an ICB to work at neighborhood
- 22:07level as part of the voluntary redundancies.
- 22:10Now, they are just as innovative.
- 22:12They are just as different. They're just as attractive to you in the industry,
- 22:17in the ICB, as they now will be in the neighborhood.
- 22:19So look at the person and what they represent in terms of their cultural affiliation
- 22:25and their ability to move things. So it depends.
- 22:29Really, it matters less, I think, about whether it's wound care or it's scanners, whatever.
- 22:36It's find the right people and the right organization. There are thriving ones
- 22:40and there are ones that are stuck.
- 22:42You need to find the ones that are going to be progressive.
- 22:45And the rest of it, I'm not sure too much. There's rarely been a time,
- 22:51even we as a relatively small neighborhood, we could agree an outcome-based
- 22:56contract for many products.
- 23:00And I would say if we have a chat in a year's time, that would include medicines
- 23:03as well, or many medicines that used to take care.
- 23:07So don't worry about your product necessarily.
- 23:11I am working, in fact, tomorrow I'm working on it, on us doing MRI scans. Wow.
- 23:17Who would have thought that at primary care? Yeah, exactly. So find the right
- 23:22account, if you like, and the right people and the right mentality and the people
- 23:26who are trying to work the project through.
- 23:27And don't worry about what layer of the system it is i'm so pleased you said that because,
- 23:32i've got your outlook there is no one right answer yeah there isn't there isn't
- 23:36one magic bullet to this it really is about i think one of the phrases i use
- 23:41a lot with industry is be curious,
- 23:43ask curious questions put the product to one side just leave it over there and
- 23:49ask really curious questions about what keeps david awake at night from a work
- 23:54perspective what's turning over in his mind.
- 23:58What are the top three things you can ask them about what his personal goals
- 24:02are from the neighbourhood what's the neighbourhood trying to do and achieve and,
- 24:05I remember I had a lovely customer, she's still a good customer,
- 24:09and Catherine won't mind me naming her, Catherine Patrick, she's Medical Director
- 24:15for Primary Care for Somerset Foundation Trust, and I remember speaking to Catherine,
- 24:20and she said to me, Scott, the issue I have is that I really don't mind industry
- 24:24coming in and having 20 minutes, half an hour of me, I'm very open to it,
- 24:28and I remember putting her hand up and she said, but what I really want you to do,
- 24:31is to ask me lots of good questions about what's on my agenda,
- 24:34then pick something off it that you can help me with and i'm going to engage
- 24:39but if you give me a heavy product pitch,
- 24:41i'm just going to wait on you going through the door and then that's meeting
- 24:44over and i've forgotten we've even met the top tip i learned from somebody years ago,
- 24:50about in-call behavior is you should speak about 20 to 25 percent of the time
- 24:56and the customer should fill the rest and you you sell against what they say
- 25:00when they reveal their needs and build up the trust and,
- 25:04um i think it's strange people have moved away from that if people do come and
- 25:08see me the ipad comes out and straight away they're into it um.
- 25:13Uh without understanding what you just said what's on my metaphor on your agenda,
- 25:18yeah it's a real struggle isn't it for industry to get beyond the product features
- 25:23and start conversations about the things we've talked about today,
- 25:26PLEX, shared risk, outcome based, that still seems to be a real struggle.
- 25:33Is there any advice that you would give the industry leaders who are genuinely
- 25:37trying to shift the internal culture?
- 25:40And the external offer towards the value-based proposition what would you what
- 25:44would your advice be to them
- 25:45i do it it sounds simplistic but to get close yeah it's the thing exactly what
- 25:50you're saying there is they they need to talk to the the like the lady you just
- 25:54mentioned yeah yeah what they shouldn't get put off with with um let's say that the woman
- 26:00that i'm talking about my colleague this morning let's call her sue for now
- 26:03she's moved from an icb to a neighborhood i've got I've got a feeling somebody's
- 26:07going to say to their bosses,
- 26:09Sue's gone from the RCB. Well, that's the end of that then.
- 26:13Instead of saying, well, she's just gone across to transition to a role in a neighborhood. Yeah.
- 26:18Totally different role in some respects, but she'll be doing very similar things.
- 26:22Right, she will. And she's just as curious. She's just as innovative.
- 26:26And she's probably still got as positive a relationship with companies.
- 26:30So I would like to see more people come out and about.
- 26:35I often give the opportunity for people to come out. I know you do.
- 26:38Some companies take it up, some don't. And we take them around the practices.
- 26:41We get them to meet people.
- 26:43Yeah. The more you're in that kind of mode and doing the sort of things that
- 26:48you advocated, you don't have to do things in a hurry.
- 26:52No. Without being too trained about it, you've got to walk in other people's shoes.
- 26:59And yet I hear people in fact leaders in market access in industry will say
- 27:05to NHS people well I know what your priorities are I know what West Street is
- 27:09telling you and you say hang on a minute.
- 27:14Yeah, just ask them some open-ended questions to see where you go,
- 27:17because you might be in for a surprise.
- 27:20And I think we would both agree that the energy generally, I don't think has
- 27:24ever been more open to working with industry. Completely, completely.
- 27:28I totally agree. And the opportunity's there. I've got customers now,
- 27:32David, that if we roll back literally just pre-pandemic, if we use that as the
- 27:36benchmark, I've got customers that would have said to me then,
- 27:40Scott, you know we don't really work with industry.
- 27:42But we don't for a variety of reasons but we don't really do it,
- 27:45who are now saying to me Scott, you couldn't find us a project that will look
- 27:49at A, B and C or we've got DNF is a real problem for us.
- 27:53Do you know anybody I'm now regularly getting requests can you find an industry
- 27:58partner for us from organisations that prior to pandemic would not have talked
- 28:03to industry never been more open to it Yeah, absolutely,
- 28:08at every level whether it's scientific research through to,
- 28:13can you get us a bit of software we want to try it out and we want to give it
- 28:16absolutely spot on can you support an away day,
- 28:20our practice nurses meet up once a month they they accept classic kind of sponsorship
- 28:24and presentations from companies and we sometimes struggle to get people to support it you.
- 28:31Know they're prescribers they're interested um,
- 28:35and it goes back to something else you're saying about the ability of people
- 28:37to push upwards yeah so if those practice nurses are influenced and they have
- 28:41a go at me and say, so why haven't we got this and
- 28:44everybody else has got this point
- 28:46of care device or everyone else is using this drug. It has an effect.
- 28:52Very, very effective. I often highlight that to people. If you win the clinical argument,
- 28:58they can engage the business development manager, the business manager for the
- 29:02department, the business development
- 29:03manager for the federation or the network or the neighbourhood.
- 29:06They can get contracting and finance involved and suddenly things begin to move.
- 29:10Yeah, absolutely. They can be your best salespeople. Yeah, totally.
- 29:15I've got one last quick question for you. Yeah, what's that then?
- 29:18So, if I get you to crystal ballgays and you look ahead for the next four or
- 29:22five years, so kind of the end of this parliament, where we might be.
- 29:27In terms of nhs and industry collaboration just like we've been talking about
- 29:30never been more open to it,
- 29:33can you paint me a picture of what you think a mature embedded outcome-based
- 29:38partnership might involve and whether or not plics
- 29:41or data would play a role in it what would that look like what does yeah and
- 29:44it's easy to do because i'm very fortunate where i work and where i live um,
- 29:50so let's use some new terms in okay what's in five years in two years um,
- 29:57we expect to have the first advanced foundation trust and to be the first ihl
- 30:01integrated healthcare organization i would be stunned if you're not
- 30:04with a multi-neighborhood provider contract what that allows us to go right
- 30:08back to the start of scott's question so the reason why why am i still here
- 30:12when i could have retired right i can see i hope that we're gonna have it So,
- 30:16I mentioned earlier as well about a clinical director for diabetes.
- 30:20Yes. The hope is that she will control a multidisciplinary team that is all
- 30:25the way from Zumba classes...
- 30:27And fitting type one devices to pumps to kids who are 10 years old all the way
- 30:33through to cutting people's feet off and everything in between and her being
- 30:37the clinical leader of that with a with a group of people around her,
- 30:41um so you can look at the budget on that,
- 30:44you can say we're going to use a preventative medicine and it stops someone
- 30:48having their feet cut off therefore it will save 15 000 quid or something like
- 30:51that and as i always say the feet don't grow back yeah No, they don't.
- 30:55So you get all those kind of benefits. Yeah. We could be close to that.
- 30:59The challenge that you guys have got, whether it's a year, two years,
- 31:03or five years, is the variation. Yes.
- 31:06We're progressive on that. You can go to other areas of the country. Scott would name them.
- 31:12And they're in similar positions. But there are other areas where they say,
- 31:15we just can't imagine that. Yeah. We just can't get people together.
- 31:19We're so busy firefighting. We've got such financial problems.
- 31:23A lot of that. We've got a huge problem to do with our maternity unit,
- 31:26with the CQC, and we just can't move forward.
- 31:29But that hope exists. Now, we've got 65,000 patients.
- 31:36We would expect, certainly in less than five years, the reason I was talking
- 31:40about MRI scans, we'll have neighborhood health hubs. We would hope to have
- 31:44those operational next year, three.
- 31:46Brilliant. Health hubs. That opens up amazing opportunities for everybody on
- 31:51this call, whatever you make and sell. Okay.
- 31:54Um, but imagine one team, the public bless them. So there's one team health and social care.
- 32:00Yeah. Um, I'm a trustee of the hospices, right? We just got system one.
- 32:05So that's all to do with me as a potential patient.
- 32:10Specialist nurse in the hospital, district nurse, tissue viability nurse,
- 32:14practice nurse, the hospice staff, people potentially, I don't know,
- 32:18from MIND or McMillan, everybody having.
- 32:22An impact on my care as an individual, all the clinicians being able to see
- 32:26that care and having one single record, that opens up all the opportunities
- 32:30and everything that Scott's talked about.
- 32:31So the final thing I wanted to say, if you're looking for a proxy of where to
- 32:35go first where's the places that are most advanced on single patient records
- 32:40yep and having that shared aspect across teams they exist already um,
- 32:45in in many localities in the country we're actually a bit further behind and
- 32:51some okay seriously catch up okay,
- 32:54But in less than five years, we will either have achieved that or we'll have
- 32:59some real problems, some real challenges.
- 33:02There's no alternative to that. Yeah, that interoperability is so important.
- 33:05I had that conversation in a different part of your ICB this morning.
- 33:09Oh, good. Mental health patients, exactly that. We've got to have one version
- 33:13of the truth, one patient record, one single record is where they're going.
- 33:18I often quite actually often highlight to the companies, do not bring something
- 33:22else that needs another login. then I've got to log out of this and you pass. Oh, just don't.
- 33:28It has to be interoperable, we hope we've got currently. Yeah,
- 33:31well, that's the thing, you know, I'm saying about going out in mid-sup,
- 33:34it's not about the relationships.
- 33:37You and I, we'd scream out to people, come and have a look at a GP screen and
- 33:41see how proud it is and the way that the systems interact.
- 33:44And that'll teach you a lot about, so if you sell seven different drugs in the
- 33:50same category, why is it such a challenge that maybe yours, as a small market share.
- 33:55When you see the screen and the fact that one of my rhetorical questions I often
- 34:00ask companies, how long is a GP appointment? How many people would a GP see in a day?
- 34:04And sadly, people are clueless about that.
- 34:08If you think in practice a GP's got what, six, seven minutes to really see you?
- 34:12Six, seven minutes, that's it. That screen and that crowded screen,
- 34:16and it's got saying if a patient's got an app for asthma, one for heart disease
- 34:21and one for arthritis, it's not going to help.
- 34:23Not going to happen interoperability all the rest of it yeah
- 34:27that's great that's got well David thank you I'm going to ask you will you be
- 34:31happy to come back again can we keep any time you made me think about all kinds
- 34:35of stuff that's brilliant listen an absolute joy a real pleasure to get us both in the same room
- 34:41comparing notes and having a chat I'm so very very grateful to you oh any time
- 34:45I'm going to talk about one out there keep going that's my main message right
- 34:48that's the one that's the right message as well keep going thank you David.
- 34:52Thank you. Take care now. If today's conversation has struck a chord,
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