Dean Fathers is a Greater Lincolnshire LEP Board Director and Chair of the LEP Health & Care Enterprise Board, with 22 years of NHS experience. He was previously Chair of several NHS organisations and Chair of both the Centre for Organisational Resilience and the Lincoln International Institute for Rural Healthcare at the University of Lincoln. Dean is also a member of the Midlands Engine Health Board and has held a portfolio of commercial board appointments for over 20 years across a range of health and business organisations.
I would like to begin by offering sincere thanks and appreciation to all health and care professionals, the nurses, doctors, allied health practitioners, porters, cleaners, drivers, and all the dedicated and committed support staff working for the NHS and in health and care services across Greater Lincolnshire. We all owe you a debt that goes beyond words and I hope that the truly positive innovations and developments taking place locally across the sector, and which are highlighted in this edition, go some small way in supporting these amazing people and the work they do and have done during Covid-19 and beyond. It is for you - who inspire us to work smarter, better, and kinder. Thank you.
It goes without saying that the pandemic reached all corners of Greater Lincolnshire and has had an impact on every community and economic sector. We now collectively stand poised at a significant milestone, in the belief that the science and data supporting the strong vaccine rollout across the UK is cause for real optimism. This is reflected in the Government’s roadmap and recent announcements to reopen the economy last month.
Health and care has rightly been brought to the fore of national debate, with politicians endorsing the vital importance of those in caring professions and a groundswell of public support witnessed over the pandemic. Inadequacies in parts of the social care system and the plight of care home workers have been especially exposed, with the use of agencies and underfunding being scrutinised. The Government has reiterated its commitment to finding a more sustainable solution for social care, and a date for a white paper is soon to be set. Across Health and care, Covid and Brexit have added to the already significant strain on labour supply, with international workers returning home and Brexit wage thresholds threatening the supply of remaining workers.
For me, our response to the human condition is of the greatest importance where, for some, ‘long Covid’ will limit their ability to work, exercise, or recover long term; and while some of the jobs and sectors decimated will come back as economic activity picks up, others may never return as challenges accelerate innovation. We know that Covid-19 has exacerbated inequalities. The pandemic has also created a backlog of operations and consultations, leading to poorer health outcomes for other conditions. Research by the IFS shows that women, the young, the poor, and those in certain ethnic groups are overrepresented in sectors which have been shut down during the lockdown. People who were distant from the labour market before the pandemic are now even further alienated from work.
Mental health is something close to my heart and I am very pleased to welcome several contributors on the subject in this edition and to see it more readily openly discussed, and both medical and work-based support and solutions sought. The Mental Health Productivity Pilot, generously funded by the Midlands Engine, is a great example of a solution being applied with effect in practice. Additionally, there is a clear need to offer retraining to help people return to the labour market, and we have already secured funding to extend the Greater Lincolnshire Skills Capital Programme and have extended ESF training and support schemes to 2023. We also launched a programme of bespoke online Jobs and Careers Fairs and have been working with schools to get careers advice to students while they’ve been at home.
Pre-pandemic we secured £1.3m of funding for the Centre for Innovation in Rural Health as part of the University of Lincoln’s Medical School which incorporates state-of-the-art laboratories and allows for knowledge transfer with business. Within this sector, joint working with and across other sectors is essential. We have begun an investigation into joint promotional activity to engage people into health and care from other sectors and promoted joint working with the National Centre for Rural Health and Care, Lincoln International Institute for Rural Health, and the National Centre for Organisation Resilience.
Our goal is to broaden and deepen the base of innovating healthcare firms in Greater Lincolnshire, aligning innovation with the priority sectors and trebling the level of innovation investment in the region. Greater Lincolnshire has already taken action in this field. We have secured funding for phase two of the Lincoln Science and Innovation Park, with innovation suites and an R&D institute, and we are supporting businesses to commercialise their own R&D or adopt existing innovations from elsewhere, building an innovation ecosystem which allows business, universities and applied research institutions to better co-develop innovation and transform business practice.
Our ambition is to develop new efficient and innovative models of care for a dispersed and ageing population, building a cluster of local businesses to support active ageing and enabling people to be economically active for longer.
Our next priorities are to exploit the unique profile of the Greater Lincolnshire area so as to achieve its potential to be a market leader in the areas of rural healthcare and better ageing, by building the infrastructure required to exploit the potential of the health and care sector to grow employment and develop advancements in STEM based technologies to attract talent, funding, and investment. We have invested in the Centre for Innovation in Rural Health at the University of Lincoln to improve the collaboration between this and the National Centre for Rural Health and Care, to develop propositions to a wider regional, national and international base. We will utilise the Midlands Engine to integrate growth of the smart med-tech and life science sector, and continue to support mental health work with local companies through an accessible website. We will build the resilience of the sector in light of changing migration rules, starting with a review of early years and nursing home capacity and resilience. And we will continue to work with practitioners across Greater Lincolnshire to convert research into better health outcomes for all citizens and continue to pioneer new and innovative models of rural health delivery in partnership with the Centre for Ageing Better.
Despite the challenges, we are positive, we are driven, and we are progressing.
Professor Dean Fathers DL
