The architecture and landscape of our health and social care system is changing.
As we continue to meet the growing needs of an aging population, support vulnerable patients with complex/multiple health conditions and continue to manage the unrelenting pressures associated with COVID-19, it is crucial that the health and care workforce across South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw (SYB) is able to meet the changing needs of our 1.5 million population.
This changing need represents a fundamental shift in the way our system is organised - and how services are likely to be delivered in the future.
As demonstrated across the last 18 months, we’re increasingly required to work outside of organisational and professional silos, deliver more user-centred and personalised approaches to care, and remove bureaucracy that stands in in the way of providing the best possible care for our patients.
On a strategic level, we have a much greater ambition to tackling health inequalities and consider the impact of the wider determinants of health (education, housing, employment etc).
To do this well - and to do this right - it requires a whole-system approach; clearly no single organisation or workstream can do this alone.
These intentions helped to shape our recent i.Care- i.Learn event (Tuesday 13th July), welcoming a diverse mix of colleagues from professions all across SYB’s health and care organisation; nursing and frontline care roles, clinical, academia, human resources and people development, and representatives from across acute, community and mental health trusts, local authorities, CCGs, universities, HEE, and academic health science networks.
The i.Care-i.Learn online workshop event was given the following mission:
- What are the values, behaviours, knowledge & skills that we need to equip our future health & care workforce with to thrive in the changing landscape of health & social care, and the shift towards Integrated Care?
- How do we provide the right learning environments and learning experiences to achieve this?
Co-designed between SYB Integrated Care System (ICS), Health Education England (HEE) and Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), this two-hour event featured highly-regarded keynotes speakers:
- Caroline Poole, Head of Allied Health Professions, NHS England & NHS Improvement
- Sarah Crowther, Principal Lecturer & Academic Delivery Manager for the Integrated Care Curriculum at Sheffield Hallam University
Aside from these expert-led talks, the breakout sessions supported small-group activities to discuss three key challenges for SYB’s health and care system:
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Challenge 1 - What does a model “Integrated Care-ready practitioner” look like?
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Discussing the values, behaviours, knowledge and skills required. |
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Challenge 2 - How do we provide the right learning environment and experiences for our health and care students to develop the values and behaviours needed for effective Integrated Care? |
This session debated approaches to how university-based learning, practice or work-based learning might need to adapt – but also how these components can be joined up more fluidly. |
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Challenge 3 - What is our roadmap to success?
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How do we measure success and show that the adaptions to learning and teaching have paid-off?
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The discussions from these three challenges generated rich ideas to take forward as we review, and then summarise, the key learning outcomes to determine our next steps as a system.
Learning outcomes from this event will also feed into a bigger project currently underway within the ICS’s Workforce Transformation Programme, called the Learning Environments and Placement Development Programme (also known as LEAP.
LEAP is focused on expanding the capacity of work-based placements within the ICS to support healthcare students during their training, as well as, developing the quality of those learning environments for our healthcare students.
Finally, a key take-home message for me was about how SYB’s current health and care workforce – given the enormous challenges and sacrifices made already - will adapt to this changing landscape.
It’s clear to me that there’s a really strong and committed talent pool capable of integrating into a new working model, however this evolves.
This is really heartening and a powerful sign that will help SYB to continue proving the best possible care as we evolve into a health and care partnership.
To find out more about this topic and other work underway to support healthcare students during their training, contact:
Gareth Cornell
Programme Manager
Learning Environments and Placement Development (LEAP) Programme
gareth.cornell@nhs.net
