How ICSs are meeting workforce challenges - four case studies
The NHS has one of the biggest workforces in the world but recruiting and retaining the right staff can be challenging: it currently has over 1.5 million staff but more than 100,000 vacancies.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan envisages a potential shortfall of between 260,000 and 360,000 staff by 2036/37 unless changes are made. In response to this, the numbers of training places for doctors and nurses are being increased with the aim of becoming less dependent on internationally recruited staff. But it is not just clinicians who are needed – other areas, such as healthcare support workers, also face a shortfall.
New ways of entering the workforce – such as apprenticeships – are being developed alongside new roles which better reflect the needs of an ageing population. Staffing is not just an issue for the NHS – social care providers often struggle to recruit and to offer a career pathway. This has ramifications for the NHS’s ability to discharge patients who need care.
But retention of the existing workforce could help mitigate any shortfalls. Since the pandemic the NHS has increasingly looked at what it can do to improve the welfare of staff with a greater focus on offering wellbeing support, psychological input for those who need it and more flexible working practices – although progress has been patchy amid financial constraints. The NHS is also looking to reduce its use of agency and locum staff – and, to some extent, bank staff – by attracting more people into substantive roles.
Tackling workforce challenges in Surrey through partnership working
Social care providers in Surrey often struggle to recruit and retain staff, for reasons such as a challenging local labour market and limited career opportunities. Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care Board worked with the county council and others to set up an innovation fund to address this. As a result, social care workers have been offered rotational roles with a guaranteed promotion if they complete a programme of training and assessment within 12 months. A Health and Social Care Academy will offer improved access to learning and development opportunities for social care staff and streamline statutory and mandatory training.
Supporting neurodivergent colleagues in West Yorkshire
Every NHS workplace is likely to include neurodivergent colleagues – as many as one in seven of the population have brains which function differently from what is seen as 'the norm.' They can face many challenges in their daily work but very often there are few adjustments made for them. Reciprocal mentoring gave a group of staff at West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership the opportunity to work with senior colleagues, sharing experiences and challenges. The scheme has given senior staff an insight into their experience and enabled them to make changes to support them, as well as changing their personal behaviour.
Boosting recruitment from local populations in Coventry and Warwickshire
NHS organisations need to recruit from their local populations and offer them training and development opportunities if they are to build the workforce they need. But NHS jobs can also embed its role as an anchor institution, helping to address inequalities. Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care System has worked to get local people into jobs or long-term volunteering posts through an employability academy which offers tailored programmes supporting people through applications. With its help, 68 have been recruited and it is now working to extend the reach of the academy into primary care.
Supporting international nurses in Oxford
Internationally educated staff are a key part of the NHS’s workforce but too often they can be thrown in at the deep end in a new environment and an unfamiliar healthcare system - at a time when they are getting to grips with living in a different county. Oxford University Hospitals Foundation Trust developed a programme of support to help them adjust. This included topics such as positively challenging others and having difficult conversations, as well as giving them information about the Freedom to Speak Up process, local networks and the role of trade unions.
