What is an integrated care system?

An integrated care system (ICS) is a method of workforce planning that co-ordinates care and staffing across the different healthcare settings – such as GPs, hospitals, mental health services, medical and surgical specialities. Taking an integrated approach allows for smoother interaction between primary and secondary healthcare settings.  

The development of ICSs was based on a practical appraisal of the way people access healthcare – local and regional providers being the most common point of patient access. An ICS can respond to regional variations in the needs of the communities they serve, tailoring healthcare provision to healthcare trends in their population. 

There are currently 42 integrated care systems in England (as of July 2022). An ICS includes collaborative forums between bodies involved in the system of care – such as an Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) with local authorities, and Integrated Care Boards (ICB) who plan health needs, manage budgets, and arrange for the provision of health services in the region. 

Why should we move to integrated care systems? 

The BBC recently reported that the top performing A&E department in the country, Northumbria Healthcare, was successful due to the trust having an integrated care system. The trust runs both local hospitals, and community services.  

“This has allowed it to better plan care for patients, discharging them quickly when they do need to stay in hospital because the trust is in charge of their care once they leave.” Source: BBC 

Moving people into the right healthcare setting, like the instance above shows, means that resources for critical emergency services like A&E are being used as efficiently as possible. 

One of the major benefits to this could be a reduction in waiting times and delays. These are key metrics for the NHS and other healthcare providers for a very good reason – when in need of care, patients want to be seen quickly and receive the treatment and support they need to manage their conditions or return to good health.  

“To see the benefits of a holistic approach to healthcare, senior leaders within each constituent part need to recognise and challenge common behaviours that work for the part but not for the whole. This is a significant cultural challenge – it will require brave decision making to step outside of existing organisational barriers, particularly when it comes to measuring performance.” 

Jon Freegard, Principal Consultant, Skills for Health 

How do trusts achieve an integrated approach? 

Each trust and healthcare provider in the UK will need a unique approach. With a large and disseminated workforce, a broad range of required skills and specialities, and regulatory requirements, the challenges and opportunities for each region need to be considered.

It is worth noting that the success of integrated care systems relies on community hospitals remaining open. Community hospitals are small, local hospitals that provide services such as community beds, maternity care, minor injuries units, or X ray departments. 

Skills for Health have developed a number of tools to facilitate integrated workforce planning – including competency assessments, education and training tools or courses, and frameworks for progress across all disciplines. We work hand in hand to foster system-level thinking across organisations, to help trusts and healthcare organisations achieve better patient outcomes.  

Case Study: Berkshire West Integrated Care Partnership

Berkshire West Integrated Care System (BWICS) reached out to Skills for Health as one of the pioneers of the Six Steps Methodology. The Six Steps was seen as a way to standardise workforce planning across the system and brought together a wide range of inter-disciplinary and multi-agency bodies.  

They collaborated to use the methodology to identify issues and priorities across social care, community nursing, and community mental health, as well as pharmacy, neonatal, emergency, and cancer services.  

Some of the priorities they identified were:  

• Applying consistency within terms and conditions across different healthcare employment settings, which would reduce inter-system competition for staff.  
• Recognising the resident population as a potential pool of future workforce was seen as a key to removing a barrier to recruitment, as housing costs for people moving into the area were prohibitive. 
• Exploring new ways of working, and introducing new roles, to support transforming services to meet future needs. 
• Valuing staff and focussing on retention activities, to meet the national challenge of staff retention. 

Taking action on these areas at a system-level was seen as a way to stabilise the supply of personnel and improve conditions across the workforce – ultimately with the aim of delivering a better service with a richer depth of healthcare skills and experience to patients.  

Read the full case study.

Contact us for more information

If you’re interested to know more about integrated care systems, or would like to speak to our team about how we can help, contact us using the form below.

The healthcare sector in the UK is facing a significant challenge with employee retention. By opening up opportunities for professional advancement and learning, employers in the healthcare sector can improve employee retention rates.  

According to the NHS, the turnover rate for nurses was between 10% and 12% and with 18% of doctors considering leaving the profession in 2021. A study by the British Medical Association found that nearly half (44%) of doctors in the UK reported experiencing burnout, with long hours and high levels of stress being the key concerns. In addition, a survey by the Royal College of Nursing revealed that in 2022, 83% of nurses experienced high levels of stress at work. 

Programmes for professional development keep healthcare workers inspired and involved in their work. Some professionals must complete a certain amount of continuing professional development (CPD) in order to keep their licences active, while others use it as a way to keep up with their education and progress in their careers. This can lead to opportunities to assume leadership positions, getting involved in special projects, as well as instruction in new and emerging clinical skillsets. By adopting eLearning as professional development and investing in their teams, healthcare organisations stand a much better chance of retaining their employees and attracting fresh talent. 

______

“Online learning provides fantastic flexibility, among other benefits, and aids in making the task of arranging development opportunities far easier. In addition, the ability for users to have access to content when needed provides the just in time element that is so critical to corporate job applicability. Adult learners want learning to be specific to their job, quick and have merit, and using an online platform allows users to learn at their own pace and use when needed. It is a win for all.” 

Dr. Sharon Jones, CEO & Founder of The Dottie Rose Foundation 

______

Implementing clever rostering systems is a different approach to improving employee retention. These systems use sophisticated algorithms to generate more flexible and efficient schedules, ensuring healthcare personnel are working compliantly while taking into account factors like skills levels, availability, and patient demand. Giving workers adequate downtime can improve service delivery and staff retention by helping to prevent overwork and burnout. Additionally, smart rostering resolves a key challenge for staffing managers, who are subject to rigid scheduling limits, by enabling them to better optimise their available resources. As a result, fewer bank and agency staff are required, which can result in significant cost savings for employers.

______

“With capacity squeezed, the conditions for overwork are growing across the system, but we must remember that the rules and regulations that govern how many hours doctors can work are there for a reason.” 

Oliver Spencer, Emergency Medicine Consultant, Croydon University Hospital 

______

Healthcare employers must use a multifaceted approach to staff retention, one that goes beyond smart rostering to include giving employees enhanced options for career advancement. Through eLearning platforms and programmes, such as those offered by Skills for Health, this can be accomplished. Medical professionals who enrol in these courses have the freedom to learn and develop new skills at a time and location that suits them. Additionally, Skills for Health offers eRostering solutions that offer a clever and efficient way to schedule and manage workforces, allowing for more scheduling flexibility while avoiding overwork and making sure that staff are working compliantly.  

  eLearning and eRostering solutions from Skills for Health:

eLearning Courses

Custom Rostering

Andrew Lovegrove, Senior Consultant at Skills for Health, the UK’s Sector Skills Council for Health, talks openly with Dominic Louks, Product Marketing Manager – and special guests from across the health industry – on the latest news and developments impacting the UK’s healthcare workforce. Each episode focuses on a theme impacting workforce development at a national level.

This healthcare podcast is available on Spotify, Apple and Google so you can listen on the go. This includes the ability to download or listen to podcast content offline, at your convenience.

Tip: Read the description for each episode by clicking the information icon bottom right.

Our principal consultant Jon Freegard, an experienced strategic workforce planning manager in the public sector, helps break down workforce planning challenges in the public sector.

Not a week passes without a news report on workforce issues affecting organisations across the public sector. The themes are the same: ‘soaring’ vacancies, retention ‘crisis’, low pay, low morale, and the debilitating impact on performance. Every issue, inextricable from the other, creates a Betari-Box-like spiral of unrelenting challenge. It’s terrible to read.

Yet, from a public sector perspective, these issues must be reported. We have a fundamental right to know. There is a risk however, that admiring the problem in this way, often by showcasing extreme exceptions that prove the rule, we risk distortion and a compounding of the issues.

Day by day, seemingly against all odds, our public services function because of the determination, competence, and conscientiousness of its people. It’s not perfect, no one would claim otherwise, but it works, in the face of all the reasons we’re reminded it shouldn’t.

Where has the problem come from?

Drawing conclusions on the root-causes of the issues, and the nature of the solutions, will to some extent be influenced by one’s politics and personal experiences. Remove this bias, and certain observable facts, such as they exist, remain. There will still be too many vacancies, too many people leaving, too few joining, lower than ideal pay, and jobs which demand too much of individuals. The Monster Raving Looney Party could find themselves in power and this would be the case, much as it previously has been and would be again under a Conservative or Labour government. This will of course be a fiercely debated point.

Common ground can perhaps be found in reflecting that, on balance, we have been spoilt. Over decades we have built and benefited from brilliant public services that by most measures rank as an outlier worldwide, and competitive amongst comparable economies. Despite the state of the UK’s financial outlook and a looming recession, we’ve developed a taste for champagne service on a beer budget and want more of the same. It is not possible to sustain.

Managing expectations

Assuming all inefficiency has been removed, more funding is required to remain where we are, yet alone where we want to be. But where does that funding come from? There is no magic money tree. There may be a few more accounting gymnastics up the sleeve of the next few chancellors, but how long can we rob Peter to pay Paul? Cashing cheques today that tomorrow can’t afford is not a sustainable option. Something must give, and it must include public expectations. Our public services would benefit from policy makers having an extremely honest conversation to manage these expectations.

None of this offers a get out of jail free card or presents an apologist’s case for an inefficient service. There’s no excuse to tolerate inherent poor performance or a lack of integrity in our services. When something goes wrong there are often devastating consequences. There must always be accountability and a responsibility for learning, irrespective of prevailing budgetary constraints. We expect basics to be done correctly every time, and rightly so.

However, continuing to state the obvious regarding national workforce challenges, and expecting individual organisations operating within wider, complex systems to solve these issues is unrealistic. Within the conditions of adverse macro-economic and governmental dysfunctions, playing out across an international web of geopolitics and public health crisis, the magnitude of which has not been seen for multiple generations – is difficult. Simply put, finding solutions is not that simple. Spotting the problem is.

So what are the solutions?

That’s not to say we’re powerless. Every person individually, employee or member of public, and every organisation collectively must be encouraged to take responsibility for the things which can be controlled. To get its own house in order.

Taking a workforce planning perspective, organisations need to ask themselves:

• Do we know where we’re going (what’s our vision, strategy)?
• Are we doing everything within our power to influence better outcomes?
• How do we know we are (do we measure and evaluate the things we’re doing)?
• Are we open to feedback and to learning?

True investment in workforce planning is likely to be counted in time. Time for individuals within their role to think about these questions, starting at the top. To consider who will take accountability for workforce planning. To adopt a methodology that supports what an organisation is trying to achieve. To seek professional, competent support of workforce planning specialists if your organisation lacks these skills. But do so in addition, not in lieu of, investing time for your substantive staff for strategic thinking.

Investing time is a foundation that will enable organisations to take the first steps. Start off small, keep the scope realistic and focus on achievable outcomes that target one or two priorities. A tangible outcome is worth its weight in gold. Equally, so is engaging with specialists at the operational level at the earliest opportunity.

From that solid foundation, momentum can be generated across all parts of the organisation. Adopt and adapt what works, share best practice with your neighbours and make workforce planning a real thing that lives as part of everyday operations. You’ll then be able to articulate what you’re doing, how you’re going to continue to do more, and the impact you expect it to have based on existing evidence you’ve already generated. With the confidence gained as a result of this approach, you can extend your planning horizon as far as you possibly can. That’s a workforce strategy that has the best chance of succeeding.

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet for the current challenges, some of which predate the unique cluster of crises of today. There are millions of professionals, deeply connected to public institutions, to which they have dedicated years to try and solve the issues. We collectively need a moment to reflect on where we are and what we expect our public services to do as we ascend the proverbial mountain. And do all we can to support them.

Further figures from the Nursing and Midwifery Council shows that 25,000 nurses and midwives left the register last year. This is more than were trained in the same period, meaning it’s a net loss for the workforce as a whole.

As a workforce planner, I’ve consistently been told that we need more of a particular job role in the future.

I always caveat that by saying “if you can’t recruit the ones you need already, what makes you think you’re going to get any more in the future?”

When your workforce supply is trickling, do we cross our fingers and hope for the best? Or do you look at alternative strategies to solve the issue in the long-term?

In the past, we’ve tended to look to temporary, contingent labour to fill in the gaps, but this is not always the quick fix, easy solution it might first appear.

For one thing, it is very expensive and tends not to be very good from an outcomes perspective.

With overseas recruitment, there are the hoops associated with registering here and getting used to the UK health systems. What’s more, life tends to be a bit of a boomerang, it tends to bring you back to your roots.

I worked with lots of people in their twenties who returned home later on in life.

That being so, we need to look at alternative models of recruitment and career progression.

We need to widen participation by appealing the largest cross section of society. Not only does this help grow the workforce, but also, in my experience, the health service is much richer for doing so.

We don’t just want a nursing cohort to be filled with people like me when I entered the profession straight after finishing my a-levels.

One of my best friends when I trained to be a nurse was someone who had just turned 40.

I benefited massively having somebody like that being on the course. Because they brought different insights and life experience.

They came into nursing as a second career option having took time to start a family, before deciding that nursing was for them. We need to support people to do this at every step of the way.

We also need to think innovatively about how we support career progression and better people’s skillsets to fulfill service needs, rather than thinking rigidly in terms of the professions we already have.

Someone once said to me “as a nurse, why would you want to become a mini doctor?”

And my reply to that has always been, it’s not about being a mini doctor, it’s about being a maxi nurse.

Bringing through very highly qualified, skilled practitioners, who have demonstrated the requisite knowledge, skills and behaviours, but through a different route, can unlock massive potential in terms of service delivery.

Recently, I saw Blackpool Hospital up in Lancashire were trying to recruit a non-medical consultant level practitioner who would work in the trust’s emergency department.

Whilst that level of practice is not brand new in of itself, the difference here is that they want a non-medical consultant to sit on tier five consultant rotors.

Provided the appropriate safeguards are in place and there’s a governance framework that supports it, we need to welcome innovations like this.

The healthcare sector has been under massive strain over the past two years and, even before the unexpected and tragic events of 2019 onwards, has been subject to a crisis of staffing – both in sheer numbers of vacancies and in real-term skill mix. This can be attributed to a number of social and economic factors, and there may not be an easy solution. However, creating a workforce of people who feel valued, competent, confident, and who are able to improve and utilise their knowledge and skills framework to face any adversity and meet any opportunity can help maintain effective service provision.

Workers who are offered regular training and an opportunity to expand their roles feel valued and more often than not relish the chance to learn and improve their practice. This is perhaps particularly valuable in healthcare where workers have a specific requirement, often enshrined in professional registration mandates, to continually update their practice. Beyond simply building on existing skills and meeting the changing needs of an existing workload, employers can make use of existing and emerging opportunities to upskill or reskill their employees to provide the best possible service, now and in the future. Access to education and career development opportunities are the backbone of an exemplary workforce.

Upskilling: for patient care

The goal of public and private sector healthcare is, at its heart, simple: to improve the health of the nation and to care for the sick. The fundamentals of good care are simple, but are also inextricably linked to a developing health and social care arena. At the very least, health and social care workers need to be up to date; this means having a structure already in place for ongoing mandatory training. By choosing an adaptive, bespoke, and accessible tailored approach to education offerings for workers, managers can create a culture of personal and professional development which reflects the needs of the service and service users. Offerings can go way beyond basic essentials and deliver future-proof skills training.

Upskilling: for employee satisfaction

Creating opportunities for career development, or simply enabling workers to excel within their current role, isn’t just essential for the running of an effective service, it’s a way of showing employees that they are valued. An organisation that seeks to support employees in developing their skills and knowledge shows that they believe in those employees. Investing in people means job satisfaction and – just as importantly – job security. Feeling valued is essential for employee satisfaction, and employee satisfaction breeds employee retention.

Upskilling: for an all-round improved service

Offering learning opportunities, the chance to excel within or without an individual’s role in the health and social care sector, creates effective, competent staff who can create a service which excels. Healthcare managers have a responsibility to continue to improve and refine their services as well as to meet new challenges with an adaptive attitude.

Using a learning platform that can be tailored to meet the needs of the service and which can be further refined to meet the needs of the individual is essential for creating an effective response to skills and personnel gaps.

Reskilling: the value of an existing workforce

One of the most important considerations in creating opportunities is the possibility of reskilling and sideways – or diagonal – movement across roles. This enables managers to fill gaps with experienced employees with appropriate skills and training. It also gives employees more opportunity to develop their careers and to progress with less constraints than more traditional linear career streams within the health and social care sector.

Empowering existing staff to remain in the organisation with the kind of opportunities they might seek elsewhere is good for employees, good for service provision, and good for retaining skills and staff. Training and taking on new starters uses significantly more time and money, leading to organisational waste, skills gaps and staffing shortages. Upskilling and reskilling a workforce is efficient, effective, and smart.

Skills for Health: agile learning for the healthcare workforce

Throughout the pandemic, the onus has been on staff at all levels to just keep the service effective. Meeting a fast-changing demand and simply continuing to provide essential services has been paramount through the pandemic. Services were required to be responsive and reactive rather than proactive. This does not mean that development and improvement has gone by the wayside, however; adversity breeds innovation, and we have learnt many lessons from the pandemic.

One of the great successes of response of the healthcare sector – indeed, the nation – to Covid has been that we have seen how we can respond to lockdown, isolation, hugely increased and altered demand and vastly restricted movement. We have continued to adapt to provide the best possible service within severely constrained circumstances. Existing eLearning offerings had to be expanded and deployed remotely on a huge scale, with accessibility for displaced staff paramount. Cutting down on extraneous administration needs is essential and easier than ever in an increasingly digitised workspace, and online learning management systems incorporate seamless compliance auditing.

LearnSpace, Skills for Health’s agile Learning Management System provides easy access to learning opportunities; accessibility tailored to the individual. Courses can be aligned to existing competencies and performance goals, tailored to the needs of the immediate service, the individual, and the organisation as a whole. A truly bespoke service which combines an individual approach with an option for collaborative learning and working, LearnSpace helps managers identify and target individual learning needs. All this with a view to upskilling and reskilling; we can empower a flexible, responsive and engaged workforce.

Addressing the healthcare workforce challenge will require intensive and sustained action across all areas of the system, with training, retention, and workforce planning being integral to this. Improving staff retention and developing a supportive environment that values staff has never been more important in the healthcare workforce and utilising a Learning Management System (LMS) can be an effective way to support this.

What is an LMS?

An LMS is a solution that supports the administration and delivery of training and eLearning, enabling organisations to engage their staff with powerful blended learning and collaboration. An LMS allows organisations to quickly scale up their learning schedules and reach employees whenever and wherever needed, with powerful tracking and reporting to keep on top of results.

How can an LMS help with onboarding?

Effective onboarding is one of the best ways to welcome and retain new employees, however, despite its importance, the onboarding process is often incredibly inefficient. With a structured approach to onboarding and the correct tools, healthcare organisations can ensure employees begin their new role with all the relevant skills and compliance training in place. When it comes to managing this process, Learning Management Systems play a central role by enabling new employees to quickly acquire the knowledge, skills, and behaviours required to succeed.

LMS functionality can offer learning workflows, blended learning solutions and systemised training methods to quickly provide new employees with the information and tools they require to confidently go about their role, enabling healthcare organisations to speed up the initial onboarding process. This systematic approach can help to create a sustainable healthcare workforce in the longer term, by improving staff retention.

An LMS is a powerful software that enables organisations to improve their onboarding processes by:

• Creating learning plans and course content that can easily be assigned to new employees.
• Building a comprehensive induction performance management process and automatically offering this to new employees.
• Assigning competencies to users based on their position.
• Highlighting useful resources to bring key information to the fore.
• Getting a complete picture of usage, progress and achievement for new employees.

How can an LMS help with ongoing employee retention?

An LMS can support ongoing employee retention in many ways, but three top examples include:

1)      Skill development

With an LMS, organisations can easily deliver each employee with a tailored learning experience which enables staff to develop the specific competencies required to improve their performance within an existing role, or to prepare for new responsibilities. Learning pathways that are based on performance, roles, and completion of other courses, can be developed meaning that learners can quickly access training that is relevant to their own personal development.

2)      Motivate and engage employees

When it comes to encouraging long-term employee retention, motivation and engagement is just as important as any formal training, which is why a good LMS should offer powerful peer-to-peer collaboration tools and a complete performance management system. This empowers workforces to share knowledge and resources through collaborative workspaces, increasing engagement levels.

3)      Learn anytime, anywhere

Delivering training with an LMS means that employees can learn at their own pace, at a time that’s most convenient to them. Bite-sized learning in a mobile-optimised format allows true flexibility for learners.

How can we help?

We’ve been championing the voices of the UK healthcare workforce since 2002. At Skills for Health, we have collaborated with thousands of NHS and healthcare providers to develop solutions that improve skills, jobs, and roles to achieve better patient outcomes. Learn more about Skills for Health.

LearnSpace is our hassle-free LMS, based on Totara Learn, that makes it easy for staff to access learning at any time and easy for managers to progress training needs to meet organisational compliance and skills development goals. For more information on how LearnSpace can help your organisation to enhance learning compliance, performance and improve staff retention, contact us today.

Our other solutions include:

• eLearning for Healthcare
• Custom Rostering System (CRS)
• Quality Mark Training Assurance

Launched on 22nd November 2021, backed up by the NHS People Plan and Our People Promise, the publication supports the drive to help create the NHS services needed for the next decade.

The publication acknowledges that “the NHS of 2030 will be fundamentally different from the service we work in today – as set out in the NHS Long Term Plan. The world of work is changing at a pace never imagined, with growing evidence of links between staff wellbeing, care quality, and retention. This is evolving alongside digital technologies, automating tasks, remote working, and new advances based on artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, existing ways of working, models of care and organisational boundaries are being transformed, as the NHS adapts to the changing needs and expectations of our population.”

At Skills for Health, we are deeply invested in the development of people and organisations in the NHS, it is reassuring to see the commitment to the role of the ‘people profession’ in the newly published report ‘The future of NHS human resources and organisational development’ and to note the acknowledgement towards the changing nature of work, of healthcare, and the emerging role of ICSs as an overarching context for the vision.

It is equally important that the community of practitioners and professionals who undertake this valuable, impactful, and profoundly necessary contribution – as diverse, challenging, and exciting as it is – feel supported and encouraged to continue to develop the ideas and approaches that can underpin a dynamic, sustainable and inclusive environment in health and care, and this report provides the reassurance that this will be the case.

The publication provides a forward-vision of the needs and challenges people professionals will deal with to shape the NHS workforce, to make it fit for purpose in 2030 and beyond. Grouped into four key areas, the report includes:

• A focus on the need to evolve to meet the changing world, changes in service demand and moving towards integrated care systems (ICS)
• A forward vision for the people profession, highlighting the importance of a professionalised service, is instrumental in making the NHS an inclusive and effective place to work
• Practical considerations to turn the vision into reality, with a 35 point set of actions for the NHS to aim towards over the next decade
• Guidance to support human resources/chief people officer professionals within NHS Trusts and ICSs, which includes 8 priorities for March 2023 to work collaboratively to make the ambitions of the plan, happen.

There is much to discuss, debate and dissect in the details of this publication, but it is ultimately a hopeful, timely and reflective analysis and set of recommendations that can inform, promote and stimulate much-needed conversations – around collaboration, resource and investment, complexity, the evolution of socio-technical development, and care for people.

As the Sector Skills Council for Health, we champion the entire workforce and put people at the heart of all workforce development solutions, to help deliver a sustainable and skilled healthcare workforce for the future.

While COVID-19 has seen new, innovative and integrated ways of working and delivering care effectively implemented across our NHS at pace and scale, benefitting both staff and patients alike. Now is the time to truly embed this workforce transformation to support recovery and achieve long-term, lasting change for a better future. But this is easier said than done.

To create flexible, sustainable services, based on the changing needs of our local communities and against the backdrop of the challenge to restore services, meeting new care demands and reducing COVID-19 care back logs, we must first fully understand, value and fulfil the development needs of our current workforce. Simultaneously, we must support staff recovery and take further steps to address inequalities in access, experience and outcomes, all the while shaping the delivery of the future workforce, ensuring both are fit for purpose.

To do this, unsurprisingly, there are many key themes and issues that need to be addressed to successfully plan your workforce, at the same time as maintaining the quality of care and outcomes against a realistic and affordable budget. The 2021/22 priorities and operational planning guidance, published by NHS England in March this year, sets out some of these, to be paired with the longer-term People Plan priorities for 2022/23 and beyond.

Under the heading: ‘Supporting the health and wellbeing of staff and taking action on recruitment and retention’, the guidance states that service providers should: “Maximise the use of and potential benefits of eRostering, giving staff better control and visibility of their working patterns, supporting service improvements and the most effective deployment of staff’. It also asks providers to: “Show how they intend to meet the highest level of attainment, as set out by NHS England’s ‘meaningful use standards’ for e-job planning and eRostering.”

While this is all helpful guidance, what are the main considerations for trusts in adopting online workforce management systems? And where should you start?

1. Understanding where you are and where you want to get to

The first step in any workforce planning is understanding your organisation and how it works. What are the elements that make your situation unique? All trusts share a common model, but also have unique challenges and pain points. It’s important to recognise and understand these, so that they don’t trip you up at some stage down the line. Also, don’t write off manual processes; they may work very well but be slow and take up resource. Think instead about how these can be automated and what else they could connect to?

2. Flexibility for a work-life balance

Next, you need to understand one of the most important parts of the jigsaw – your staff. Looking after them and effectively deploying them is what the whole process is about. Morale is a crucial issue. Are you sure they’re only working their contracted hours and aren’t being over-worked? Do they have the flexibility they need to maintain a good work-life balance? Are you sure they are not being asked to act up or down? This has other implications in terms of efficiency and planning. All of this must also be critically balanced with patient safety.

3. The key to good eRostering

You can only achieve the above by having systems that provide real time feedback on staff planning and deployment. Systems that will quickly and easily allow you to react and manage issues as they arise.

Compliance is sometimes seen as a chore or a barrier to efficiency, but it is an essential measure of how we safeguard patients and protect the welfare of our staff. Real-time compliance reporting is a vital tool in monitoring how we’re doing. It should not be seen as a pass or fail indicator; it is there to highlight issues and let us effectively and efficiently deal with them.

4. Digital roadmap

As workforce planning increasingly continues to digitise, you are going to become heavily reliant on good digital tools to move your organisation forward. These tools must fit into the NHS digital vision. For example, will those tools integrate easily with other systems? Will they flow data into corporate reporting systems to give better insight across the trust?

No system is an island, but many vendors will push you to buy their own closed system. It is always tempting to think about dealing with as few suppliers as possible, but unfortunately that can lead to putting up with parts of the solution which are anything but optimal. A good solution vendor will commit to integrating with your IT landscape and signing up to KPIs that ensure great service. If they won’t, then you really shouldn’t use them.

5. What people deserve

Finally, make sure you embark on solutions that will deliver what you and your staff both deserve. No solution will be perfect. But provided it is flexible, can be customised, and is backed up by knowledgeable and prompt support, you will get a system you can enjoy using as well as delivering the results you need.

In Niamh’s true open-spiritedness and with a penchant for sharing her wisdom and thought-provoking insight with others, through both written and visual means, we have been fortunate enough to gain a peek into ‘Niamh’s World’ and be part of her journey. Here, in Niamh’s 4^th and latest instalment in her ‘On being a CIO’ blog*, in celebration of her ‘1^st NHS birthday’, we read of Niamh’s honest reflections and musings as she ends her first year at NHS Resolution and looks forward to her second.

“So it’s now a year since I made the move and joined NHS Resolution as their first CIO and my first role as a CIO so I thought I’d drop down a few reflections as I contemplate Year 2 ahead of me.

First and foremost, this has been a great year – I’ve learned a lot personally and professionally and I enjoy the job immensely. It was a big leap, so this was by no means assured and so being able to truthfully say “je ne regrette rien” is really great.

This past year has been a year of change. In the past 12 months, we’ve created a strategy and a “north star”, started lots of different projects, re-organised our directorate and run the largest technology procurement process the organisation has ever undertaken, to name but a few…all during a global pandemic!

But progress on a few projects has been slower than I’d have liked, all for valid reasons but still…In a way, I feel like I’m dragging the organisation along faster than it has ever been whilst simultaneously feeling I’m not doing things fast enough. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel like the pace is right – maybe that’s just part of the challenge of being a CIO?

This year, I’ve enjoyed the chance to connect with other colleagues across the NHS, we’ve recently started a CIO/CDIO forum for those in the ALBs (Arm’s Length Bodies) of the NHS. It may be a bit of a cliché, but we are all on a similar journey and there’s much to be gained from hearing from others.

I’ve hugely benefited from the support I’ve had – from Mark Sutton at CQC to Darren Curry at NHSBSA, from Wendy Clark and Dan Jeffrey at NHSBT to Dean Freed and Alfie Harvey from NHSD to name but a few. All have been there to provide advice when I asked for help. I also started connecting to those outside the NHS, and this is something I definitely want to do more of in year 2 as I’m a fan of blending private and public sector best practice.

In terms of challenges, recruitment has been more of a challenge than I’d expected, and I suspect this will not change over the next year. As CIO, I am only as good as the team I have around me and I am absolutely persuaded that there are plenty of people out there who would love to work in our environment. We may not pay as well as the private sector but the opportunity to be part of something big and grow and learn in a supportive environment must appeal to many, particularly for those from different and diverse backgrounds? We are trying lots of different approaches – but I’d love to hear from others who have found a way to get their roles and opportunities in front of the right people.

So, to sum up, Year 1 was about laying the foundations – getting the strategy, organisation and plans in place for our transformation. Year 2 will be about getting the ball rolling – and as we all know, getting a good start is essential as it’s so hard to row back the further you go along.

I’ll always worry about whether I’ve made the right decisions, but I do trust the process that we’ve followed (which has been comprehensive) and the team we have in place to deliver (who are fab).

Buckle up folks – this is going to be fun!”

*This piece was first published on August 19 on Niamh’s LinkedIn blog, where you can connect and follow Niamh for more insight into her work.