Minister stresses importance of ‘building back better'

Giving one of the morning keynote presentations at an ‘NHSE/NHSI Estates & Facilities Forum’ webinar in mid-March, Minister of State for Health, Edward Argar, gave attendees at the event – held in conjunction with IHEEM – a ‘Health Infrastructure Plan Refresh’. The Minister, who has direct responsibility for England’s healthcare estate, also emphasised the Department of Health & Social Care and the wider Government’s commitment to ensuring that the NHS estate continues to benefit from sufficient funding and focus to enable clinicians to deliver high quality, efficient care over the next decade and beyond.

The webinar session in which Edward Argar spoke was introduced and chaired by Simon Corben, the Director and Head of Profession for Estates and Facilities at NHSE/NHSI, who had himself spoken earlier in the day on the ‘eight core objectives’ on which he and his team have been focusing (see pages 29-32), and which they will continue to prioritise as the UK begins to emerge from the pandemic

The Minister began by thanking Simon Corben for the introduction, and expressing his gratitude to all those within NHSE/NHSE and IHEEM who had been involved in organising the day. Describing the webinar as ‘a hugely important event’, he said he was delighted to be speaking as the Minister with direct responsibility for both the NHS estate, and the associated work that all those working in NHS EFM roles undertook. He said: “In normal times, I would have given multiple speeches like this in my 18 months in post, but the challenges of organising events such as this during the pandemic, and the pressure of work in our diaries that we have all faced over the past year, have seen me politely decline many of the invitations extended to me. However, today’s event is different; as soon as Simon and his team invited me, I had no hesitation in saying ‘yes’. That is because of just how central and vital the work of the professions and people represented today has been to our pandemic response, and how important your work is to our NHS everyday. I understand,” he continued, “that attendees today cover the whole breadth of those working in and around, and supporting, our estate – from representatives from NHS England and NHS Improvement, to Estates Directors, Finance Directors, and others working in the Estates and Facilities space.”