The UK’s healthcare infrastructure is simultaneously one of the most advanced systems in the world, and one of the most beleaguered. The NHS is a crowning achievement of modern society, providing free healthcare to the tens of millions that make up the United Kingdom – but a combination of poor management and lacklustre funding has led it to a parlous state.
Meanwhile, private healthcare solutions are gaining traction amongst UK citizens with the money to spare – and without any time to waste. Together, these factors make the UK’s healthcare industry a fertile landscape for new start-ups. Tech entrepreneurs are seeing opportunities to update core systems in hospitals and care facilities, management firms are seeing opportunities to provide valuable consultancy, and medically-trained professionals are seeing opportunities to create viable independent practices.
A Unique Opportunity
This unique healthcare industry landscape is, in brief, lucrative territory for those hoping to carve out a space for themselves at present. As waiting lists remain high and GP appointments remain scarce, solutions from both sides of the reception desk are more welcome than ever.
However, fulfilling a need in healthcare is not as simple as incorporating a business or facility. There are numerous roadblocks to instituting you own healthcare business, of different types and with different ramifications for your development. What are these challenges, and how should you face them?
Regulations And Licensing
The leading challenges facing new healthcare businesses are regulatory in nature. There is, rightfully, a great deal of legislative red tape between businesses and operating in health or social care – to say nothing of the licensing and qualifications required of practitioners and managers in order to have any form of viability as a business. The specific regulations change significantly from business model to business model, which makes seeking industry-specific advice especially important.
As a research facility developing medicines or other treatments, there are many regulatory hoops to jump through before even reaching the door of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA); as an in-patient care facility, there are core standards that must be met, enshrined in law. If you are not aware of the specific requirements your own business needs to meet, you may not be ready to trade in the UK healthcare industry anyway.
Financial And Funding Challenges
Regulatory challenges are notoriously difficult to understand, let alone meet – but with the right approach to ensuring compliance, they should not be the most difficult part of incorporating a new business in the healthcare industry. The most difficult potential challenge is one that is, in fact, common across industries: money.
Sourcing the necessary finances to fund your infrastructural growth can be difficult, but is not altogether different from the process of incorporating any business. You can seek loans from banking and other lending institutions on a secured or unsecured basis, enabling you to invest in appropriate resources and equipment; the challenge is guaranteeing the profits necessary to afford the repayments.
