Effective ICSs will require ‘inter-professional’ working

The opening day’s second keynote at October’s Healthcare Estates 2021 conference – which followed a look at the New Hospital Programme team’s ‘commercial philosophy’ by the Commercial director, Emma-Jane Houghton, saw David Flory, Designate Chair of Lancashire and South Cumbria ICS, and interim Chair for Cheshire and Merseyside ICS, take part in a ‘question and answer’ session with IHEEM CEO, Pete Sellars. Topics covered ranged from how the EFM community might best support the goals and ambitions of England’s new Integrated Care Systems, to contrasting healthcare provision and hospital design models here and in Qatar, where David Flory previously spent over five years as Chief of Hospitals at Hamad Medical Corporation.

Introducing David Flory, session chair and IHEEM CEO, Pete Sellars, said he ‘should need no introduction to anybody who’s been around the healthcare sector for the last 20 years or more in England’. He said: “David has just recently come back from his role as Chief of Hospitals at Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar, but before that he held various executive roles at national and strategic levels, a DirectorGeneral role in the Department of Health, and, of course, was Deputy Chief Executive of the NHS Commissioning Board a few years ago.” Having thanked David Flory both for his support for IHEEM, and for agreeing to speak at this year’s flagship IHEEM annual event, Pete Sellars then asked him, as a first question, what had attracted him to the role of a potential ICS Chair.

What attracted him to the ICS Chair role?