Voices of Care

In this episode of Voices of Care, M. Suhail Mirza is joined by Dr Chaand Nagpaul CBE, acclaimed national GP leader and former Chair of the BMA Council
Dr Nagpaul challenges the new PM and the lazy description of general practice as simply the “front door” of the NHS.
 
He argues that GPs and practice teams are now managing patients in their entirety and explains why the “left shift” from hospital to community cannot succeed without genuine investment in general practice and community care

In this episode of Voices of Care, we are joined by Professor Nicola Ranger, General Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing.
The episode explores why nurses remain undervalued, how pay and progression have failed to reflect responsibility and skill, why misogyny still shapes the way nursing is described. Nicola argues that nursing must not be treated as a workforce line in a plan, but as the living infrastructure of safety, dignity, prevention and trust

In this episode of Voices of Care, M. Suhail Mirza is joined by Ross Dowsett, CEO of Practice Plus Group; Dr Subashini M, Medical & Sustainability Director at Aviva UK Health; and Jonathan Finney, Director of Engagement at the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN).
 
This is a timely conversation about the changing shape of UK healthcare. The episode explores why the old binary between NHS and private healthcare no longer captures what patients, employers and providers are experiencing. Instead, the discussion looks at the emergence of a more blended health system, where public, private, insured, self-pay and employer-supported care increasingly intersect.

In this episode of Voices of Care, we are joined by Paula Sussex CBE, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
This is a timely and deeply important conversation about trust: trust between citizens and the state, trust between patients and the NHS, and trust that when something goes wrong, people will be heard, the truth will be told and the system will learn.
Paula discusses the mission of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the importance of patient voice, the role of complaints in individual redress and systemic improvement, and the new PHSO strategy to help turn complaints into a catalyst for better public services and NHS commissioning.
The episode explores why complaints should never be dismissed as noise, but understood as vital intelligence about safety, dignity, fairness, communication and public trust. Paula also reflects on NHS commissioning, regulatory gaps, duty of candour, avoidable harm, technology, and the need for patient voice to be heard in the design of services.

In this episode of Voices of Care, M. Suhail Mirza is joined by three exceptional NHS leaders: Louise Stead, Vanessa Ford MBE and Cara Charles-Barks MBE.
All three are nationally acclaimed NHS chief executives. All three are women. All three are nurses by background. Together, they bring a powerful and deeply human perspective on what it will take to lead the NHS through its next chapter.
 
The conversation explores the reality behind NHS transformation, including the shift from hospital to community, the need to support patients to take greater control of their own health, and the challenge of moving care closer to home while still maintaining safe and effective services in acute settings.

In this episode: 4 national leaders discuss the future of Homecare, Tech and Fair Funding and Commissioning and present opportunity to truly value the sector's workforce. They call on the new Health and Social Care Secretary to really understand the contribution homecare makes to our nation.
 
"Homecare's time has come. There are three shifts that the government talks about, from hospital to community, treatment to prevention, Analogue to digital. All of those three are precisely where homecare sits"

“It’s probably never been more important for public and private to work together.”
That was the clear message from a recent Voices of Care conversation with Bupa leaders Richard Washington and Philip Luce.
Key messages include:
- The role of employers driving private health insurance: Bupa’s data suggests private healthcare can materially improve workforce productivity, with SMEs gaining the equivalent of weeks of additional capacity each year.
- Connected care pathways. “The big challenge in healthcare is those seamless end-to-end journeys,” Richard Washington noted — from GP to diagnostics to specialist care.
- Need for greater alignment between public and private provision. “I don’t think people should see the private sector as competitors to the NHS,” Philip Luce argued.
Alongside this, Richard and Phillip discussed other longer-term trends including genomics (a “huge unlock” for earlier intervention), role of prevention and growing interest in value-based healthcare.
Taken together, these signals point to a system transitioning toward a more integrated, multi-actor model of care.
The question now is not whether this shift is happening — but how it is shaped.

Many commentators decry the "nanny state" yet a clear message from William Roberts, CEO at the Royal Society for Public Health, in our latest Voices of Care podcast challenges this narrative. As he says:
 
" People want to be healthy, and the public overwhelmingly want their governments  to support them to stay healthy"
 
William speaks so passionately about the Prevention agenda and the role that Public Health is and can play to support workers, employers and all communities. He confirms that employers can be more pro-active as "we know that the reason people are dropping out of work is because they have lots of health problems.
 
Perhaps most importantly, as figures show life expectancy falling in our country, he highlights that we need to address the fact that there are stark inequalities in life expectancy.
 
His message offers hope as he highlights the broader public health workforce that could be trained and deployed to address all of the above and invites us all to truly be leaders as " public health is everybody's responsibility"
 
William also covers the role of the NHS, the Men's Health Strategy and much more in an episode you will not want to miss 
 

United we stand- Social Care's Moment Must be Now
 
As official podcast partners to the Care England Annual Conference we are delighted to share the latest Voices of Care episode featuring 7 leaders from the sector; a golden thread running through this episode (echoing the "Stand by me" theme of the Conference ) is the call for the sector to unite and be recognised for its contribution. 
 
In the words of Professor Martin Green "there has never been a more important time for the sector to show unity" while Care England colleague Fraser Rickatson  called for the Government to invest more toward the Fair Pay Agreement.
 
Honouring the workforce, fostering leadership and driving collaboration across the system were some of the themes highlighted by guests Rebekah Cresswell, Andrea Kincade and Peter Kinsey.
 
Tim Davies was strident in reminding us all to acknowlege the contribution of the international workforce:  we need to look after and value are that the workers that we have who weren't born in the UK
 
And Nuno Santos Lopes speaks passionately about the profound role care homes are and can play in palliative care.

In a landmark episode of the Voices of Care podcast, hosted by Suhail Mirza and sponsored by Newcross Healthcare, three of the UK's most respected figures in health policy and life sciences deliver a frank and urgent assessment of the opportunities and obstacles facing the NHS, Government and the Life Sciences sector. They are Bill Morgan, Senior Partner at Newmarket Strategy and advisor to two government administrations; Sarah Woolnough, CEO of the King's Fund; and Maria Tereno, Managing Director for Boehringer Ingelheim UK and Ireland.
 
Declaration of involvement
Boehringer did not fund or commission this podcast and had no editorial control over its content or any related materials. The podcast was checked for factual inaccuracies only