Workforce Planning
The focus this quarter has been the NHS England workforce planning and controls return. The return has presented a series of questions to providers and the ICB to seek reassurance on workforce planning and control activities. The ICB has been asked to review the provider submissions and feedback supportive narrative to NHSE. This review will support the system in understanding where we can share and learn from best practice and best support organisations with any challenges. It also supports the system to re confirm we are working in the right areas and whether there are any further areas, that would benefit from targeted work.
The workforce operational planning improvement project continues to meet to consider ways to improve workforce planning. A Team has been set up to facilitate this and support preparations for the 25/26 workforce plan. This also allows sharing of events to support the workforce planning community, including the recent North Workforce Network session on planning in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) environment.
A significant amount of discovery work has been completed on the development of the Digital Workforce Strategy. This is beginning to generate some excellent insights into how we can develop a digital workforce for the future.
e-Workforce Systems
The ICB-led workforce data community of practice continues as a platform for collaboration and co-working between Trust workforce information leads and other stakeholders. This group is currently prioritizing the scope and operational requirements for new system-level ESR feeds, as a route to ensuring more timely and accurate data to inform ICS decision making.
Other specific workstreams continue relating to systems such as e-roster, where we maintain a dedicated stakeholder group supporting our workforce optimisation aims. We have also supported SY Trusts to secure a 20% group buying discount for a Job Evaluation e-workforce system.
Temporary workforce
As a result of the recent Deloitte-led review of SY ICS finances, temporary medical workforce is now a priority area of focus for improvement and cost reduction. This has involved engagement with Chief People Officer and Chief Medical Officers, leading to agreement on likely areas of focus (e.g. rota management). These system-level discussions have filtered down to individual organisation engagement, with the ICB providing data packs and leading exploratory meetings with Trust representatives to agree more specific Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) to progress through Q4 and into 2025/26. Whilst some themes will require a system-led approach (e.g. Deanery supply challenges), the primary focus has been on supporting each organisation to identify their own areas of focus, for impact within Q4.
We have continued our engagement and supplier management activities for other staff groups, including nursing and non-clinical staff groups. This includes current consideration of future contractual/master vendor arrangements for bank staff, and ongoing oversight and scrutiny of non-clinical agency usage through an ICB-led process.
Recruitment
An NHS England national Time to Hire programme has emerged this quarter, which will have a crossover with the existing SY project, in terms of data collection and improvement aims. Data indicates the SY project has helped to slightly reduce the average time to hire over the last year, and discussions are ongoing as to how we can continue this momentum and improvement, whilst not duplicating Trust time/effort in the context of the new national reporting requirements. Two SY Trusts are directly involved in the current national reporting pilot and will give feedback in Q4.
Enabling Staff Movement
We continue to lead and support SY Trusts in relation to Digital Staff Passport (DSP) rollout. The pace and timeline for this rollout is currently delayed due to national factors, but SY remains at the forefront of the process, with STHFT and DBTHFT the most active DSP Trusts in the country. SY is in a strong position to deliver the potential of the DSP, when the national programme picks up pace again.
We also continue to explore other staff movement tools at a system level. This includes a ‘one employer’ MOU pilot approach to mutual acceptance of pre-employment checks between SY organization. This quarter SY ICB has worked closely with colleagues at STH to finalise the approach and supporting documentation required, with launch planned in Q4.
Partnership working
Job Evaluation has emerged this quarter as a growing area of focus for collaborative partnership work at system level. A joint meeting of Chief People Officers and Chief Medical Officers in November led to agreement on a collaborative approach to nursing profiles, to commence in Q4.
Other examples of effective partnership work include our ongoing Scaling of People Service programmes, which include Time to Hire, collaborative procurement and workforce optimisation. We have also made good progress with an improvement project focussing on inclusive progression for Band 5 nurses, including a stakeholder panel engagement workshop and the design and issuing of a nurse survey, with findings to be analysed in Q4.