The annual NHS Providers conference will no longer take place in person and will be held online instead, the organisation has said.
The event is on 16 and 17 November. It is one of the major national events for NHS leaders.
The change comes amid high pressure on NHS emergency care and rising covid-19 hospital admissions. In recent weeks some media coverage has highlighted NHS face-to-face events continuing despite concerns from the service about the growing impact of covid and the potential need for government action.
NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said in a statement: “As recent news coverage has shown, NHS trusts are currently under significant operational pressure with a combination of a very busy urgent and emergency care pathway, demand growth across all sectors, backlog recovery, vital vaccination campaigns and covid-19 cases. At the same time, there is significant uncertainty about the level of covid-19 infections.
“Our elected board of 20 trust chairs and CEOs has unanimously decided that, given this combination of circumstances, it would be inappropriate to continue with a face-to-face conference. Moving the conference online will enable trust leaders to be in their trusts, where they need to be at this moment, and this will eliminate any covid infection risk involved in holding a face-to-face event.”
Source
Statement
Source Date
October 2021
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