ABHI at 30
It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you, ABHI at 30, a collection of 30 opinion pieces from the key players in our industry, to mark three decades of ABHI.
If your business is health, 30 years is a long time.
13 Health Secretaries, sweeping reforms and varying levels of funding have led to a challenging, but dynamic environment to work in. In that time, our industry has changed significantly too, from being product based, to delivering value-based service solutions and increasingly incorporating new fields of science, utilising digital data, artificial intelligence and robotics. From its regulatory based inception, ABHI has grown, not just in size, but in its activity and crucially, impact. A leadership team has been assembled, specialists in their respective fields, and the international business has been developed widely. We have a level of participation in policy discussions and a network that is unsurpassed by others in HealthTech. The team are expertly positioned to represent their 280 members and I am proud that ABHI’s voice has never been better, louder or stronger.
Of course, ours isn’t the only birthday this year. The NHS marked its 70th and a number of the articles within this book highlight the future direction of our health service, made all the more fascinating by the recently announced 10-year plan, a new Secretary of State for Health, the emergence of Integrated Care Systems and the coming together of NHS England and NHS Improvement. There has, arguably, never been a time of more profound change. What the UK’s relationship with the rest of Europe will look like, post March 2019, remains to be seen; far be it for me to speculate. One thing I am certain of though, is this is truly the most exciting time to be involved in our industry.
I encourage you to take the time, sit back and enjoy this document. Read through the opinions. These are the voices that make our industry what it is. Let’s celebrate it.