IHEEM endorses revised NHS PAM

While the DH estimates that the ‘original’ Model has been used by only 30% of the overall potential audience, the new, ‘streamlined and easier-to-use’ version, which IHEEM peer reviewed and endorsed last month (see page 29,) is designed to encourage much wider take-up, as HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

To discover why the DH’s NHS Estates and Facilities Policy Division felt the original NHS PAM needed revising, updating, and re-launching, this January, just two years after its original introduction, and find out more about the nature and aims of the changes made, I met with the Division’s Head of Profession, Peter Sellars, recently, at the Department of Health’s Skipton House offices in south London. Before discussing the ‘new’ Model, however, he recapped on why the Division had developed the original version during 2009, prior to its official ‘launch’ in the summer of the following year (HEJ – August 2010). “All the factors that drove the development of the original Model still apply today,” he explained. “A fundamental tenet of the NHS culture at the time, which remains equally applicable today, is that patients should receive healthcare services that meet both high overall standards, and their expectations, and this very much includes the physical environment within which they are looked after. “With an ever-increasing focus from Government, regulators, and patients themselves, on the quality of the healthcare environment,” he continued, “and continuing recognition of the critical part that well-maintained, ‘clean, suitable, and safe’ (see right) NHS buildings play in delivering optimal care, the original Model was developed to provide a baseline for commissioners and providers to demonstrate how, on the one hand, healthcare environments contribute to healthcare delivery and improved patient outcomes, but also how, on the other, they could support a public health agenda increasingly focusing on empowering patients with real choice.”

Providing a coherent picture