Teamwork the key to good patient care

As HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie reports, among the wide-ranging estates and facilities topics set for discussion will be ‘Getting the patient environment right’; ‘Dementia – Building for the Future’; ‘Waterborne Infections; Lessons Learned’; ‘Incorporating lean thinking into design’, and the key challenges faced by the estates and facilities sector. The keynote address, touching on a wide range of issues common to all large organisations, will be given by one of the best known ‘women in football’, and will also reflect particularly on the importance of teamwork.

Taking place at the Stadium MK, Milton Keynes, from 22-24 May, the 16th Annual HefmA National Conference and Exhibition will, the organisers say, ‘explore how, as the healthcare sector strives to continue to cut costs, the only way for healthcare estates and facilities teams to stay ahead is via service transformation’.

The conference, which will be complemented by the usual accompanying exhibition (see pages 59-62 for a preview), will be officially opened by Paul Fenton, chair of HefmA’s Eastern Branch. After his welcoming address, the keynote speech – appropriately given the event’s theme, the venue, and her own strong footballing connections – will be given by Karren Brady, ‘the UK’s first woman football manager’, who is today vice-chairman of West Ham United FC. She will give what is expected to be an inspiring and upbeat keynote, discussing topics – including motivation, achieving goals, leading and building teams, delivering change, and management – that apply across all types of organisation.