Optimizing Healthcare Environment

Introduction

Healthcare environment is required to be properly managed as it related to society’s health condition and improper environment would lead to create deteriorated health of individuals. In this essay, the description of social enterprise is to be provided and the PEST analysis tool is to be explained. The PEST Analysis is to be performed for the London Borough of Lewisham to discuss the impact of investment in health and social care done by the borough. On the basis of the PEST Analysis, recommendations for the area are to be provided.

Social Enterprise

The social enterprise is referred to the business which is influenced by social objectives along with the profits gained are reinvested in the improvement of the organisation. The social enterprise in health and social care has the key goal to include patients and staffs to design and deliver care services because the involvement leads patients to have greater control regarding their health services as well as acts in improving the care services which tailors with their specific needs and demands (Calò et al. 2018). Thus, it indicates that social enterprises in the healthcare field are the key foundations that help the Department of health to fulfil the patient-led agenda.

PEST Analysis

The PEST Analysis is referred to the strategic business tool that is used by the organisation for discovering, evaluating, organising and tracking macro-economic factors that affect the current and future aspects of the enterprise. The PEST Analysis tool examines the threats and opportunities related to Political, Economic, Social and Technological forces (Elrod and Fortenberry, 2017).

Political:

The optimism of social enterprises in the UK as well as in Lewisham to execute their activities is seen to have fallen sharply with the implementation of Brexit as they fear lack of financial investment for them to be received through trading in the market. This is creating worrisome attitude among the social enterprise in Lewisham as they fear due to lack of finances they would be unable to arrange and provide services as well as support in the society to resolve the social problems (hbr.org, 2019). The EU acts as the significant source for the social enterprises to avail migrant workers who would help them offer services to help the enterprises accomplish their goals of resolving social issues (hbr.org, 2019). Thus, Brexit is going to create shortage of employees for the social enterprise in the UK working within the healthcare field making hindrance for them to deliver productive services as a result of less availability of human resource.

The Lewisham Changemakers is referred to the network and programme created for the social entrepreneurs, community groups, charities or local business those have the zeal to create social enterprise in the Lewisham for managing the social issues in the area. The programme is launched in 2019 which is going to be a 7-weeks intensive course that consists of 6 evening classes along with 2 whole day sessions to be organised. In the programme, different exceptional team of specialist trainers along with social investors and industry experts are to be included for effectively training the applicants for developing social enterprise in the area (lewishamhomes.org.uk, 2019). It informs that the Lewisham borough is interested in creating more health and social care social enterprises to successfully tackle the wide number of social issues in the area. This is because expanding partnership and performance of social enterprise along with other healthcare organisation in Lewisham is going to create increased opportunity for the social workers and healthcare professionals to work in collaboration to manage social issues to improve quality of living in the society.

Economic:

The Community Foundations are regarded as experts in the local areas within the UK to determine the needs of the public in the locality and the organisations who are working in the area to control and manage social issues. They are found to offer £70 million each year to social enterprises in and around the boroughs of UK (the-sse.org, 2020). The understanding of needs in the community is important to be determined by any organisation offering grants to identify for which causes they are to invest so that the raising issues are resolved and a better social situation is able to be created (Durbin et al. 2017). In addition, determining the needs of the enterprises who are trying to work in resolving the issues is required by the Community Foundations to have knowledge regarding the number of grants to be provided to ensure their successful operation in the area (ukcommunityfoundations.org, 2020). Thus, social enterprises present in Lewisham would have opportunity to access grants from Community Foundations to arrange proper services in controlling the social issues in the borough.

A survey mentioned in the Social Enterprise Strategy 2008-2011 informs that only 50% of the social enterprises in Lewisham were successful in accessing grant for delivering support to society. Out of them 8% of the social enterprises in Lewisham were too much successful whereas the rest 42% were fairly successful in accessing grants for creating and delivering appropriate services (councilmeetings.lewisham.gov.uk, 2012). This indicates only half of the social enterprise are getting adequate funds and grants for performing proper activities in controlling social issues in Lewisham. As mentioned by Ganz et al. (2018), effective grants are required by social enterprises as the existing finances which they receive as profit from the business are not adequate to develop services in managing social issues in a proper way within the community. Thus, the grants act as additional financial assistance for the social enterprises in Lewisham which is presently been able to be availed by only half of them creating lack of financial resources for the latter half of the social enterprises who are trying to work to improve the social circumstances of the area.

Social:

The current population statistics in Lewisham informs that there is quite high number of older people (25.7%) compared to older people living in England are facing economic deprivation. The economic deprivation indicates that there is lack of financial resources along with the presence of material benefits that are basic necessities in life are not present among the individuals. This impact on the individuals by making them unable to arrange proper healthcare resources as well as affect their psychology as the resources required for everyday living are not adequately present among the individuals (valewisham.org.uk, 2018). The presence of increased social deprivation indicates that there is need for increased contribution of social enterprises in the area so that the social lives and health of the elderly people are to be improved. This is because social enterprises in the health and social care field act to resolve the aspects such as economic, physical and social issues in the society to overall improve the lives of the population (Collins et al. 2018).

The residents in the Lewisham are seen to support the idea of the development of social enterprises to manage health and social care aspects in the area. They mentioned that social enterprises in the locality have better ideas regarding the factors that are leading to the raise social and health issues in the area. Moreover, they support social enterprises in Lewisham as they are able to resolve the gap experienced by the population in availing health and social care from the private and public organisations (valewisham.org.uk, 2018). Thus, it informs there is increased demand of social enterprises in Lewisham making the borough to arrange and invest funds towards them.

Technological:

The Lewisham CCGs is seen to support social enterprises in the health and social care field within the area who are using artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver support and care to the population (councilmeetings.lewisham.gov.uk, 2019a). The support for artificial intelligence (AI) is required as it helps through the use of computers and technologies in resolving complex healthcare challenges faced by individuals. The AI use is seen to improve diagnosis of various diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer, diabetes and others (Jiang et al. 2017). Therefore, support of the social enterprises using AI in the Lewisham by the local CCGs is going to improve health conditions of the service users and public in the area. In addition, this support is going to help social enterprises in offering better guidance as well as support to the public in the area to remain healthy.

The Therapy 4 Healing is a social enterprise that is located in Lewisham and offers health and social services to promote the health and well-being along with personal development and education of people in the borough and South London. The social enterprise is seen to use digital communication to interact with the service users and the public. The act of using digital communication is seen to be supported and encouraged by the CCGs and local council in the area (lewisham.gov.uk, 2020). The digital communication in healthcare is essential as it helps to resolve geographical barriers, offer faster and immediate healthcare to the service users (Karpeh and Bryczkowski, 2017).

Recommendations

1. It is recommended that Lewisham does invest more of its funds into the social enterprise so that an integrated support package for them can be created for their effective performance in the area to control the social issues. This is because such funding would increase business support for the social entrepreneurs who are trying through their social enterprises to control health and social care issues in the area. In addition, the extra funding would help the successful social enterprises to have additional finances in training their staffs to determine ways in which specialised care services can be provided to people in the area so that overall living standards of the individuals are improved.

2. It is recommended that Lewisham before planning the investment of more funds for the social enterprises are to develop map of their financial support. In addition, Lewisham is suggested to initially analyse the goals and objectives of the social enterprises in the area to determine how many of the enterprises are suitable to get support of funds from them so that improved health and social care environment in the area can be built. This is because it would help Lewisham council to determine which of the social enterprise have proper knowledge regarding the social needs and issues in the area, in turn, assisting them to provide fund for selected enterprises who are trying to genuinely work in the area to improve its health and social situations.

3. It is recommended to Lewisham that they invest funds for the social enterprises in the area by determining the additional grants they can arrange for the enterprises from national and private funders. This is because it would improve the financial arrangement for the social enterprises in the area to work more effectively to deliver improved services.

4. It is recommended to Lewisham that they invest funds for the social enterprises as there are increased numbers of economically deprived elder people present in the area who are in need of care assistance. The funds would help social enterprise to develop diverse services and framed better strategies to arrange solution of the factors that are leading to the economic deprivation of the people in the area. It is required to enhance better living opportunity as well as social situation in the area.

5. It is recommended that Lewisham invest funds for the social enterprises in the area so that they have financial resources to improve their way of the use of technology in the form of artificial intelligence as well as digital communication in healthcare. This is required to provide better health and social care environment to the population in the area by fulfilling care gaps created by private and public healthcare organisations.

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