We’re delighted to announce the publication of our Business plan 2021/22. In it, we set out key objectives for the final year of our refreshed five year strategy, Delivering fair resolution and learning from harm.
The past 18 months have posed an extreme and unprecedented challenge for the NHS. Organisations across the healthcare sector have needed to adapt as part of the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.
Our six key priorities for the next year link to the vital work already underway across the health and justice sector to:
- reduce the incidence of harm through improvements in patient and staff safety;
- embed a just and learning culture so that, where incidents do occur, they are openly disclosed, investigated and learned from; and
- ensure that disputes are resolved as early as possible via neutral and less adversarial means.
Resolution is one of the four main themes threaded throughout our five year strategy, and we continue to strive to keep claimants and healthcare staff out of court. By focusing our efforts closer to the point of incident of harm or concern, we aim to achieve resolution much earlier and to avoid cases escalating into more formal and, often, costlier processes. We continue to expand the use of alternative dispute resolution initiatives across our core services.
Further strands of our strategic priorities focus on: intelligence and intervention – using our expertise in clinical negligence claims to develop, embed and continuously improve our new indemnity schemes for general practice and support the health service’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic; continuing to build on our unique role in sharing learning back to the health system; and ensuring that we remain fit for purpose as an organisation, by responding to the changing health landscape and making a step change in our technology, data analytics capabilities and infrastructure, while also supporting our people through a period of significant change. This encompasses a renewed focus on equality, diversity and inclusion.
‘Our new Business Plan will present us with a number of fresh challenges over the coming year’ explains Helen Vernon, Chief Executive of NHS Resolution.
‘The emergence of Covid-19 has led to many healthcare organisations having to rethink their approach, particularly in relation to patient safety and harm reduction.’
‘Through our plan, we’ll continue to meet the needs of members and stakeholders in response to the pandemic, as well as supporting our own staff through a significant period of change.’
Additionally, we’ll now start to plan towards the next five years and beyond as we develop our new strategy for 2022 onwards. We’re eager to ensure that our new strategy builds on the successes that we’ve had over the course of the last five years and reflects the environment we’re all in now and are likely to continue to operate in over the next five years.
