5G in Health and Social Care: NHS Challenges

The NHS is in reality a collection of hundreds of organisations, such as NHS Foundation Trusts and thousands of private General Practices all bearing the same branding (the famous NHS logo) but all in fact often fiercely independent from each other. There is some centralisation of commissioning and procurement activity, and a move towards the new ‘Integrated Care Systems’ in England (already represented by a ‘health board’ model in our devolved countries). The workforce is vast and the turnover of patients un-imaginable to most external observers. The service MUST innovate to bring the latest treatments to bear, ensuring uniformity of access across a nation of urban, suburban to starkly rural populations. The cost of treatments and therapies and of diagnostic and screening systems is only increasing alongside patient demand and indeed ‘customer’ expectations. The NHS tends to rely on older technology platforms that underpin the clinical ‘care pathways’. So how might 5G disrupt (positively) the existing models and help move this complex beast towards its extraordinary and challenging goals and a sustainable future.

This event is of interest to anyone involved in health service transformation initiatives.

KTN is a delivery partner for UK5G

UK5G is the national innovation network dedicated to the promotion of research, collaboration and the industrial application of 5G in the UK. Its mission is to ensure that the UK is at the forefront of global 5G development. KTN is a delivery partner for UK5G.

About the series

In 2020, UK Healthcare spend accounted for 12.8% of GDP, £269 billion. The NHS alone employs 1.6 million people, treating millions of patients and supporting further millions of citizens in need of help and guidance. Significant injections of additional Government funding were required to help adapt service delivery models and meet increased demand for services related to the pandemic.

Amid Covid-19, the health and social care sectors have introduced new and innovative ways to operate safely and efficiently—yet new challenges have emerged related to treatment delays, on-going infection risk and increased demand on services such as mental health and wellbeing.

5G has the potential to support innovation in these areas and across the sectorsas a whole: facilitating more efficient and effective ways of working. Globally, developed economies share these challenges while emerging economies continuously face extremely challenging conditions and ongoing shortages of skilled workforce, further enhanced by pandemic fallout. Health and Care service delivery has seen an acceleration towards community services (treatment and management away from hospitals)  meaning increased reliance on data and communication systems both in wireless tech and  wired connectivity formats.

5G has great potential to replace and enhance such connectivity and much more besides. It may prove to be a key platform to underpin the innovation in  adjacent  technologies and in ‘best practice’, which will become necessary to build sustainable health, care (and increasingly wellbeing and preventative) service designs for the future.

This series of events will be of interest to anyone involved in contemporary health and care service design or delivery.

• 18th November | What Makes 5G Different?
• 29th November | Prevention and Community Management
• 7th December | NHS Challenges