EFM community can ‘build on good will’ looking ahead

Minister of State for Health, Edward Argar, Director and Head of Profession, NHS Estates and Facilities, at NHSE/NHSI, Simon Corben, NHS Chief People Officer, Prerana Issar, and NHSE/NHSI Director of Operational Finance and Performance, Sandra Easton, were among the speakers at an NHS England and NHS Improvement ‘Estates Forum’ webinar held in conjunction with IHEEM on 16 March. HEJ, editor, Jonathan Baillie, here reports on a scene-setting presentation from Simon Corben.

The fully CPD-accredited whole-day online event on 16 March began with a brief introduction from IHEEM CEO, Pete Sellars. He explained that among the major topics covered would be ‘some of the lessons learned through COVID’, ‘Estates and Facilities finance and workforce’, and ‘the NHS drive towards Net Zero Carbon’, while the audience would also get the opportunity to hear direct from Minister of State for Health, Edward Argar, giving his personal standpoint on the recent challenges faced by the EFM workforce, and looking ahead to both the challenges and opportunities for such personnel in the future. Pete Sellars encouraged those listening/viewing to ‘take advantage of the interactivity of the sessions’, by putting their questions to the various speakers using the facilities within the webinar software. He then introduced the day’s first speaker, Simon Corben, who he said would be focusing on the ‘eight national critical areas of priority’ that had been identified to support the NHS as it emerged from COVID. 

Thanks to the entire EFM community