What a year! It’s certainly been a year of ups and downs, but we wanted to take a minute to look back on some of the biggest moments that shaped the world, the public sector and The PSC over 2022….
Let’s cast our minds back to January 2022 to start our calendar of the good, bad and sometimes weird events of the past year…
27 Jan - The UK government ended its plan B restrictions in England – face masks and COVID passes were no longer legally required. Some elements of normal life resumed across the country, including The PSC starting to get back into the office!
3 Feb - The PSC committed to tackling four of the key UN Sustainable Development Goals, including enhancing quality education and life-long learning and reducing inequalities.
8 Feb - Health Secretary Sajid Javid set out the government's plans to reduce the NHS backlog resulting from the pandemic, including new facilities paid for by an extra £8bn of investment over the next three years. We shared our thoughts on how NHS estates can avoid the most common pitfalls of some of the ‘big bang’ infrastructure projects going on across the country.
24 Feb - Russia invaded Ukraine which sparked international outrage and a sharp fall across the FTSE100 and other markets round the world. Antonio Weiss, head of digital at The PSC, spoke to UK Tech News about the risk of cyberwar and what that would mean for businesses and individuals.
25 March - Antonio’s book, The Practical Guide to Digital Transformation, was published and we celebrated with colleagues and friends of The PSC.
24 April - With COVID rules just behind us, we brought together a panel of experts to talk about the role of technology in tackling some of the greatest challenges faced by higher education. We discussed what was learned from digital transformation during COVID.
14 May - UK came second in the Eurovision song contest. Ukraine very rightly wins.
31 May - Ex-BBC Tech Editor, Rory Cellan-Jones speaks to our wonderful client Kelsey Flott about the Scan4Safety programme and how it’s making a difference to patient safety.
19 July - Over 40 degrees celsius temperature was recorded for the first time in the UK - making us all rather hot on our commute to work but also sparking questions about how the UK public sector will need to adapt for increasingly hotter summers. We wrote down our thoughts on how hospitals would need to adapt for future heatwaves.
21 July - Our monitoring satellites work in collaboration with The UK Space Agency was on show at Farnborough Space fair. Find out how their work protects vital satellites from the growing threat of space debris.
31 July - Lionesses bring it home by becoming the UEFA Women's Euro 2022 champions!
6 August - Ofgem announced an 80% rise in the price cap on household energy bills, from £1,971 to £3,549. Concerns over a cost of living crisis in the UK intensify.
6 Sept - Liz Truss became PM and two days later, Queen Elizabeth II died bringing a two week period of national mourning. The PSC thanked the Queen for her exceptional commitment to public service.
20 Oct - Liz Truss resigned leading her to be the shortest serving UK prime minister by a long way. Four days later, Rishi Sunak became PM.
28 Oct - The PSC moved offices. After the uncertainty caused by COVID, we were thrilled to have a new space for us all to come together and learn from each other. We also launched our new and improved newsletter - subscribe here!
3 Nov - Our clients Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust appeared on BBC Radio 4 PM talking about Same Day Emergency Care as part of a segment on new approaches that are improving efficiency in NHS Trusts. Listen to the segment on BBC Sounds from 47 mins onwards.
15 Nov - World population reaches 8 billion.
27 Nov - I'm a Celeb 2022 finishes with ex-Health Secretary Matt Hancock coming in third place.
... and that brings us to the end of our 2022 calendar. With enormous winter pressures on public services, an uncertain economic situation and war ongoing in Ukraine, it's very easy to forget that there were some highlights in the past year so I hope you enjoyed seeing a few of ours, scattered amongst the big national and global events that shaped the year.
Thank you to all our colleagues, clients and friends of The PSC who continue to support us. We'll see you all in 2023!