Healthcare Facilities Consortium (HFC) non-executive director, Jane Riley, explains how the HFS has recently launched FM Knowledge Exchange (FMKx), a set of online tools designed to encourage collaboration and communication between healthcare organisations and estates professionals, as well as their product and service suppliers.
Healthcare Facilities Consortium (HFC) non-executive director, Jane Riley, explains how the HFS has recently launched FM Knowledge Exchange (FMKx), a set of online tools designed to encourage collaboration and communication between healthcare organisations and healthcare estates professionals, as well as their product and service suppliers. The aim, she says, is ‘to bring together in one place, via an easy-to-use, single online resource, a combination of clients, suppliers, and like-minded partners, to make it easier and quicker to seek advice, knowledge, solutions, and suppliers’.
Making the most of resources and innovations at the same time as reflecting clinical strategies, and ensuring a safe, welcoming environment, are key themes for estates and facilities management (EFM) professionals in healthcare. Recent reports from Lord Carter1 and Sir Robert Naylor,2 and the Government’s response,3 are putting even more emphasis on productivity, collaboration, and sharing of ideas and innovations. In response, HFC has created the FM Knowledge Exchange (FMKx) – an easy-to-use set of online tools to make it easier for EFM providers and suppliers to come together. It is a free-to-use resource for the NHS, and available for an annual subscription to private sector suppliers.
The ‘Carter Report’, published in February 2016, emphasised the importance of understanding ‘what good looks like’, and using this to identify opportunities for change. It also made clear that estates and facilities management issues should be integral to local Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs), as the NHS aims to deliver the NHS Five Year Forward View.4 The 2017 Naylor Review built on these themes, and set out a set of recommendations for strengthening the strategic and operational management of the estate, focusing particularly on the need to ensure that only those elements that are required are retained, and that all surplus estate is identified and sold in deals that offer a combination of benefits for the NHS and the rest of the public sector.
Log in or register FREE to read the rest
This story is Premium Content and is only available to registered users. Please log in at the top of the page to view the full text.
If you don't already have an account, please register with us completely free of charge.
