11th September 2017

Global health experts gather in Swansea as “challenging” NHS paper published

The Bevan Commission is getting ready to welcome its global health experts to Swansea this week as they hold their annual conference at Swansea University’s Bay Campus.

The Bevan Commission is an independent and authoritative think tank made up of international experts who help challenge current NHS thinking and practice to ensure it is fit for the future. It provides its advice to Welsh Government on all matters relating to health, the NHS and social care in Wales.

Chaired by Professor Sir Mansel Aylward CB, the Commission moved its Welsh headquarters to Swansea University’s School of Management on the Bay Campus in September last year. The Commission will now be hosting more than 500 delegates to the Great Hall on September 14 to find realistic and sustainable solutions to the grand challenges faced by the NHS today.

Keynote speakers include world-leading health academics Professor Sir Michael Marmot, from University College London, and US Professor Don Berwick. NHS Wales’s Director General Dr Andrew Goodall and Vaughan Gething, Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport, will also be there to address delegates about the need to accelerate change and innovation within the health service in Wales.

Bevan Commission chair Professor Sir Mansel Aylward said the conference was the end to a very busy and productive year for the Commission and shows how Wales is leading the way in healthcare innovation. He said: “We are delighted to be welcoming such eminent health experts to Wales. The calibre of people attending our conference demonstrates how Wales is leading the way in terms of NHS innovation and working together  to challenge the status quo to ensure we still have our treasured NHS in the next  70 years.

“The Commission is focused on helping to create an NHS which is fit for the future. Our expert Commissioners donate their time to helping us in this challenge and together, with our Bevan Innovators we believe we can try out and test new ways of working.

“We realise the NHS cannot continue to work in the same way it always has and that real transformation has to take place to protect and preserve it with everyone involved.

“We are focusing our energy on turning ideas and thinking into action and change. At this year’s conference we will be launching our latest White Paper, the first part of a series called “Exploiting the Welsh Health Legacy”.

“This challenging paper ‘A New Way of Thinking’ calls for a more prudent social model moving away from the more traditional medical model, which takes account of the wider social determinants of health such as housing and employment.

“At our conference we will be challenging our NHS to be bold, brave and decisive.”

Bevan Commission director Helen Howson added: “This new model recognises the shared responsibility of society starting with the individual. It promotes innovation, new ways of thinking and working but also places the responsibility of improving health and wellbeing across society as a whole.

“To be able to improve and sustain health and wellbeing here in Wales we must look for a new solution and be brave enough to pursue it.

“This paper reinforces the point that we must not hang on to the old ways of thinking and working just for the sake of it – we must move with the times and find solutions that will be fit for the future.”

View the Bevan Commission’s profile here.