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A need for ‘more joined up’ thinking and practice

At October’s Healthcare Estates 2018 conference, Simon Corben, director and head of Profession, NHS Estates and Facilities Efficiency and Productivity Division at NHS Improvement (NHSI), gave a comprehensive update on the work of he and his team.

At October’s Healthcare Estates 2018 conference, Simon Corben, who took up the role of director and head of Profession, NHS Estates and Facilities Efficiency and Productivity Division, at NHS Improvement (NHSI) in May 2017, gave a comprehensive update on the work of he and his team, and discussed with delegates progress with the team’s short- mid- and long-term objectives. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports on his address, ‘An update from the Centre’.

Introducing Simon Corben as the Day One opening keynote speaker at the Healthcare Estates 2018 conference, outgoing IHEEM President, Pete Sellars, said that, having started the conference with such an interesting retrospective – a dramatised performance by actor, Jon Buckeridge, who gave a vivid portrayal of Aneurin Bevan looking back on the past 70 years of the NHS as if he had just been ‘transported’ to 2018 before the main presentations began (HEJ–November 2018) – now was ‘the perfect opportunity to look forward’, with an address by the head of Profession, NHS Estates and Facilities Efficiency and Productivity Division at NHSI. 

In opening, Simon Corben explained that his aim would be to give delegates ‘an idea of what is going on in the centre’, and to focus on some of his team’s and the wider sector’s most notable achievements over the previous year. He would cover three main areas – ‘Operations’, ‘Collective achievements’, and ‘Short-, mid- and long-term objectives’. Beginning with ‘Operational governance’, he explained that the NHS Property Board had been established for just over a year, was chaired by Lord O’Shaughnessy, met every month, and was already achieving ‘some really good traction’. He explained: “In the last year we have brought in Sir Robert Naylor as a Special Advisor to the Property Board. He is currently concentrating on the London area, but I am sure his reach will soon extend further. Dr Sam Everington has also joined the Board to give us a clinical perspective, and really to drive the primary care initiative.”

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