Future-Proofing Newly Created Community Health Providers

The opportunity to fundamentally re-design the way in which community health services are to be provided happens only very occasionally. It is crucial therefore, that, in settling on a new blueprint for provider services, the design is judged to be capable of success, not just in today’s environment but also tomorrow’s. In other words, the design needs to be “future proof”.

Future-proofing seeks to strike a balance between the unavoidably strong influence of contemporary and immediate forces (and the persuasiveness of stakeholders associated with these forces) and the needs of a business to streamline itself so that it deals effectively with new and emerging forces. Such forces are not yet fully formed and therefore, their impact is not fully understood nor have the interest groups that might represent such forces mobilised.

Any future-proofing exercise must first seek to predict and depict the nature and shape of the future environment and the main forces that will be at play in it. Having done this, the exercise should seek to examine, and then go on to assess, provider options to see how well they equip the business to survive and thrive in the future environment.

Foresight is an imperfect faculty. However, the future shape of community health services is reasonably well-illuminated by, amongst other things, a rich and clearly-articulated policy context, as well as a neighbouring social care environment that appears to be already some way down the path that health care is expected to follow.