One of the conference highlight’s was Hilary Thomas’s presentation on leadership. Hilary has pursued a strong career through academic clinical oncology and leading a cancer network, and is now medical director of the Royal Surrey County Hospital. This was a well-crafted presentation which though covering familiar ground, was sufficiently challenging (The NHS must change faster if it is to survive) to keep our attention at the end of a long morning.
Whilst medicine was once considered simple, ineffective and generally safe, rapid technological progress, expectations & demand, and government intervention has changed all that. The US healthcare system is now largely driven by the pharmaceutical industry, and globalization will extend this to us all. [It already has.] Tomorrow will need to be proactive rather than reactive, characterized by partnerships not paternalism, and with healthcare based around the patient, and not the institution or [professional] tribe. Honesty and integrity will be vital.
Challenges for tomorrow are education, short-termism in the NHS, its treatment of senior managers [hear hear], and combatting the growth of regulation and reorganization.
Just one minor regret: Hilary’s love of gastronomy merely served to highlight the awfulness that was to be lunch.
