The Impact of Brexit on Basildon Hospital: Challenges and Solutions

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of Brexit on Basildon Hospital, an acute general hospital managed by Mid and South Essex NHS foundation trust. The report investigates the challenges faced by the hospital, including changes in patient care, professional qualifications, and the supply of medical equipment. The study explores the impact of Brexit on staffing, trade agreements, and patient footfall. It also examines potential mitigation strategies, such as staff engagement, in-house healthcare staff recruitment, and vendor changes. The report incorporates theoretical perspectives like Constructivism and Bureaucratic Politics to explain the complexities of Brexit's effect on the hospital's operations and the healthcare sector as a whole. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the need for proactive measures to address the challenges posed by Brexit.

Project strategy

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
LITERATURE.................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Brexit is a negotiation which is about UK leaving EU and after months of negotiations
UK and European family agreed on this deal. Brexit was withdrawal of UK from EU as in the
year of 2016 UK voted to leave EU. This agreement came into force on 31st January 2021 and
trading bloc was left (Sampson, 2017). Under the deal of Brexit freedom to work and live
between EU and UK was about to end and this way own trade policies are set by EU and UK in
appropriate manner. This report is associated with various aspects and implications of Brexit in
the background of Basildon hospital which is an acute general hospital which is managed by Mid
and South Essex NHS foundation trust. The report is covering Brexit impact over the hospital
along with the challenges which are faced by the organisation.
MAIN BODY
Questions
 How Brexit is impacting working of Basildon hospital?
 What are the challenges faced by Basildon hospital during implication of Brexit?
 What are the ways in which these challenges can be mitigated by Basildon hospital?
LITERATURE
Impact of Brexit over working of Basildon hospital
Brexit is going to have various impacts on hospitals in UK as there would be a notable
change in the relationship between European Union and UK. This process is associated with
change in various legal framework and process of various countries falling under European
Union and UK (Williamson, Ganah and John, 2019). This can have various positive and negative
impacts on both parties and hospitals of UK based on various factors such as Staffing,
professional doctors and nurses, supply of equipment’s etc. below given are some of the major
impacts of this agreement on Basildon hospital:
 The rights of citizens about health and long-term care insurance – There will be a
change on options of patients from where to take the treatment as currently overall
European Union is a single union with not much restrictions having free or reasonable
transfer of services among various member countries but as the Brexit agreement is
entered there will be legal restrictions which might force and UK citizen to get his
treatment done in UK and European citizen will have to take their own which will impact

footfall of patients in the Basildon hospital in large manner (Owen and Walter, 2017).
Moreover, the legal framework would lead to change in terms and policy by the insurers
that can be averse to citizens and may have impact on their preferred treatment center.
 Recognition of Professional qualification in healthcare – Earlier prior to Brexit, there
used to have been Directive naming EU Professional Qualification Directive which gives
various professionals across European Union automatic recognition across the union
which allowed them to practice their professional more freely but now there will be new
regulations and guidelines which will restrict those recognition and Basildon might have
impacts on their current professional resources, they might have to go and then Basildon
will be left with the option to search for new and well known professionals in their own
country as per new regulations (Svendsen, 2019).
 Movement of Medical Products and medical devices – As the UK leaves the Union
there will be an impact on the various medical equipment’s and devices and their supplies
(Orazulike, 2018). However, various provisions of the agreement envisage and protects
the free supply of various medical essentials like Vaccines, medical products, and
devices. As the health remains to be highest priority for any government, the health care
industry has been given special attention so that it might not affect the health or
compromise health of any of its citizens. Due to this Basildon may have impacts on
supply of various equipment’s, drugs and medical devices and they might have to be
ready with an alternative for same (Sizmur and Raleigh, 2018).
 Health Security – In the agreement between the European Union and UK, contract for
health security has been concentrated and entered which states that in case of any health
related threats the security activities will take place as third country which means that
only temporary driven events based on acute threat situation (Seferidi and et. al., 2018) .
In such acute threat situation such as current COVID pandemic, crisis management
activities will continue in partnership among the European Union members and UK
within the Health Security Committee and through Early Warning and Response System.
It can be clearly noticed from the above points that due to change in various laws and
regulation within the Brexit agreement there are going to be various impacts on Basildon
Hospitals in terms of patient footfall, supplies or their equipment’s and various professionals.
Challenges faced by Basildon hospital during implication of Brexit

Basildon is one of the leading hospitals in UK having a great reliance and trust in terms of health
services across Europe. It serves patients from across UK and has a vast network of its suppliers
across Europe with various member countries (Fahy and et. al., 2017). Entering the Brexit
agreement would mean, there must be various changes in operations and components of its
services due to change in legal framework and regulations. Below given are some of the
challenges that can be faced by Basidol and which must be mitigated by them:
 Immigration of Professional: Basidol hospitals currently has large number of
professionals employed who have immigrated to UK from various member countries of
European Union as it was easy before Brexit with Union to get citizenship of member
country but after entering into an agreement there will be some restrictions for that
immigration which might force them with challenge for searching and having new
professionals with UK or professional that can comply with regulations. It is going to be
major challenge for Basidol (Davis, 2020)
 Free trade agreements for Medical services and devices: Before Brexit there was a
free trade policy of economic activities among the whole European Union without much
regulations, now since an Exit agreement is entered there are various laws and regulations
that Basidol has to comply with and they may face the challenge to search for supply of
their required resources within their boundaries which they used to bring from other EU
members (James and Clark, 2020). They have to thoroughly review and scrutinize their
current list of suppliers and impact of Brexit on agreement with those suppliers.
 Reduction in Footfall of Patients: UK Is considered as a good partner in health industry
across the world and has majority of renowned hospitals including Basidol (O’Dowd,
2017). As of now for Basidol there had been footfall of patients from various parts of
Europe as the transfer and many facilities were free or concessional for members and
moreover insurance companies has simple policies which allows patients to take
treatment in any European hospitals without much complications, but with the Brexit
agreement Basildol is eyeing on challenge of reduction in customer footfall in their
hospital for the services as now the patients coming from other European union member
would be few as compared to earlier, they might have to come out with an alternative or
may need to open up their operations in other parts of European Union that to after

completing bunch of legal requirements (Somai and Biedermann, 2016). It might cause a
financial and liquidity stress to the hospital which has to be addressed as soon as possible.
Ways in which challenges can be mitigated by Basildon hospital
There are numerous ways which can be adopted by Basildon hospital so that to deal with
challenges occurred due to Brexit and some of them are enlightened below:
 Staff engagement: Due to implication of Brexit health services are also facing various
issues this could drop morale of health workers. In this manner all the members within
Basildon hospital are required to work together so that they can deal with this crisis
effectively (O’Dowd, 2017). All staff members are paying significant role in working of
a hospital whether they are nurses or surgeon. So by improving staff engagement Brexit
challenges can be mitigated by Basildon hospital. On the other hand by mixing of high
skilled healthcare professionals patients can be tackled in prominent manner.
 In house healthcare staff: Before implication of Brexit Basildon hospital was dependent
over EU and UK healthcare professionals but after decision of Brexit complexities were
faced by the hospital. In order to mitigate the same Basildon hospital is trying to find
professionals within UK only so that to support Brexit decision and to minimise
organisational complexities (Rodriguez‐Arrastia and et. al., 2020). Basildon hospital is a
well-known hospital and this is the reason that they are having staff which are outside
from UK and may be from EU region. By recruiting in-house healthcare employee this
will lead Basildon hospital to minimise challenges occurring during organisational
operations of hospitals.
 Changing in vendors: Before implication of Brexit vendors of surgical equipment’s were
related with EU and UK. This created difficulties in operations of Basildon hospital when
decision of Brexit declared (Collins, 2019). In order to minimise this difficulty Basildon
hospital is changing their vendors and suppliers from EU to UK so that any difficulties
related to machinery delays can be avoided. On the other hand this will lead the
organisation to take participation in Brexit decisions and to provide ease for managing
business operations.
Theories over Brexit
Constructivism and Brexit

Constructivism is focused over norms and conventions which are related with
international and European politics (Hadfield and Hammond, 2017). In relation to Brexit the
national interest of EU or UK and in this manner various roles can be played by both the national
boundaries. In this aspect Basildon hospital is align with foreign policies in which appropriate
identity is created.
Bureaucratic Politics and Brexit
This theory is focused over output by implementing foreign policy and individual policy
position. For understanding complexity of Brexit the major focus of Basildon hospital is related
with examining capabilities of managing standard (Griffin, 2020). On the other hand Brexit is
handling managing reverse standard and operational procedure so that enlargement of businesses
can be seen within UK.
In the context of hospital industry Brexit has shown numerous impacts as separation of
UK and EU this created huge complexities for hospitals in operating functions in regular manner.
By decision of Brexit various EU doctors and other staffs left UK and this was the major reason
that UK and EU faced high discrepancies in medical facilities (Allan, 2017). On the other hand
in order to mitigate this issue both the countries acknowledged numerous measurements in which
these challenges are tackled. This would help Basildon hospital to minimise negative impact of
Brexit on their organisational operations and serving standard for patients.
CONCLUSION
From the above detailed report this can concluded that Brexit decision is associated with
various impacts which are negative and positive impacts. For both the nation they are facing
complexities in managing economic and social activities. Brexit was a decision in which UK and
EU got separated and this took place after voting of citizens in democratic manner. For Britain
and UK this is a big deal as global crisis propounded due to Brexit and this would the economy
as devastated. Besides this supply of consumer goods barred and due to this various companies
faced differentiated issue in their supply chain and business operations. Besides this in order to
mitigate these issues all the businesses in UK and EU are using various measures so that these
issues can be managed and economic conditions can be enhanced.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
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Collins, J., 2019. Laying it on the Line: The Border and Brexit. Mercier Press Ltd.
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services during 2000–2019: initial conditions for responses to Covid-19. Post-
Communist Economies. 32(8). pp.969-1010.
Fahy and et. al., 2017. How will Brexit affect health and health services in the UK? Evaluating
three possible scenarios. The Lancet, 390(10107), pp.2110-2118.
Griffin, S., 2020. Covid-19: Supply chain problems could delay NHS tests.
Hadfield, A. and Hammond, M., 2017. Kent and Medway: Making a Success of Brexit: A
Sectoral Appraisal of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises and the Rural Economy.
James, T.S. and Clark, A., 2020. Delivering electoral integrity under pressure: local government,
electoral administration, and the 2016 Brexit referendum. Local Government Studies,
pp.1-22.
O’Dowd, A., 2017. Brexit could mean delays for cancer treatments and less safe medicines.
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conditions in the UK. Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource Management. 6(1).
pp.63-95.
Owen, E. and Walter, S., 2017. Open economy politics and Brexit: insights, puzzles, and ways
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Rodriguez‐Arrastia and et. al., 2020. Nursing emigration in the United Kingdom: A qualitative
exploration of the Spanish nursing community. Nursing Open.
Sampson, T., 2017. Brexit: the economics of international disintegration. Journal of Economic
perspectives. 31(4). pp.163-84.
Seferidi and et. al., 2018. Implications of Brexit on the effectiveness of the UK soft drinks
industry levy upon CHD in England: a modelling study. Public health nutrition. 21(18).
pp.3431-3439.
Sizmur, S. and Raleigh, V., 2018. The risks to care quality and staff wellbeing of an NHS system
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Somai, M. and Biedermann, Z., 2016. Brexit: Reasons and challenges. Acta Oeconomica, 66(s1),
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Svendsen, Ø., 2019. Brexit and the future of EU defence: a practice approach to differentiated
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(Sampson, 2017)(Owen and Walter, 2017)(Svendsen, 2019)(Seferidi and et. al., 2018)(Fahy and
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(Collins, 2019)(Hadfield and Hammond, 2017)(Griffin, 2020)(Allan, 2017)(Somai and
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