Step 1: Understand the current position: Bay HCP Workforce Baseline

The WRaPT Team used a range of data sources including Electronic Staff Record (ESR), Skills for Care Social Care Workforce Data and  NHS Digital Primary Care Workforce published data.  The baseline report gave a picture of the following:

• ‘Workforce at a Glance’ giving a breakdown of the Full Time Equivalent (FTE) and Headcount (HC) of the workforce across health and care sectors.
• Breakdown by FTE and HC as a whole with a detailed picture by organisation type and by sector type.
• Further breakdown by each sector to include detail by organisation type (e.g. Acute/Community/Mental Health organisation in the NHS, Local Authority / Independent Sector in Social Care).
• A detailed Primary Care Network (PCN) level analysis including FTE vs list size and a staff group breakdown by PCN to show differences in staff make-up in relation to population size.
• Age profile overview by organisation type to identify any risk areas or staff groups.
• Vacancies (where available) by staff group.

Local leaders on the People Board validated the data and through this engagement, changes were made to better reflect the workforce across the different sectors.

Step 2: Identify and agree the workforce challenges

The People Board identified eight challenges:

• Vacancies
• Retention
• Training
• Health and Wellbeing
• Age Profile
• Mobility between Employers
• Growth Expectations and;
• Pay Differential.

Step 3: Collectively agree the priorities

With representation from all the sectors, the People Board agreed three priorities:

Priority 1: Colleague Health & Wellbeing

• Ensuring the HWB of all staff working in all sectors of the partnership
• Rolling out the “Flourish” approach across the whole ICP with all partners contributing to the services and resources
• Ensuring high levels of take-up for both flu and COVID vaccinations across health and social care
• Ensuring links to partner Health & Wellbeing initiatives, including CCG and Training Hub delivered primary care opportunities

 Priority 2: Workforce Planning & Modernisation

• Developing a comprehensive, composite workforce baseline for health and social care in the Bay, highlighting key people challenges at organisation and system level so that an integrated system plan can be developed
• Developing a combined approach to sustainably meeting our workforce needs from within
• Ensuring workforce transformation support is identified and allocated to support BHCP Service Transformation programmes, developing modern career pathways
• Ensuring full mobility across all employers to address mutual aid requirements

Priority 3: Anchor Institution – “Choose BHCP”

• Targeting employment opportunities, pre-work interventions and careers engagement to those communities and areas that need them most
• Ensuring the Bay optimises the opportunities provided through PCN expansion roles (Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme – ARRS) by coordinating activity across providers and hosts to ensure additionality is achieved
• Providing support to embed new roles to improve retention and stability for the workforce in Morecambe Bay
• Collaborating and enhancing activity through the Virtual Recruitment Hub

Step 4: Risk stratify to inform a programme of work

The People Board were asked to risk stratify the priorities with a particular emphasis on “workforce sustainability over the following 12 months” and facilitated by the WRaPT Team in a workshop, they did this by:

• reviewing the challenges,
• voting on the top four in most need of action,
• considering what actions/projects/approaches were already happening and;
• identifying opportunities for collaboration across the partners.

People Board members voted on their top four challenges into Priority 1, Priority 2, Priority 3 and Priority 4. The votes against each priority were counted with a scoring of 4, 3, 2, 1 applied to Priority 1-4 respectively.

The four top priorities for immediate action were agreed as:

1. Recruitment (Vacancies),
2. Retention,
3. Mobility between Employers, and
4. Health & Wellbeing.

Step 5: Develop a Programme of Work

With funding received from the ICS the People Board appointed a Place-Based Programme Manager to deliver the workforce programme to focus on the top four priorities agreed by the People Board and draw up a programme  of work for the next 12 months.  This is currently underway.

In the areas of Mobility and Health & Wellbeing established workstreams exist across the ICS or BHCP which meet the priorities of the People Board or can adapt to meet these priorities and as such the People Board have agreed to support these workstreams as part of their programme of work for the next 12 months.  The Place-Based Programme Manager will join these workstreams to provide their support.

For Recruitment (Vacancies) and Retention, there are currently no established workstreams or defined projects so the Place-Based Programme Manager, supported again by the WRaPT Team plan to run a workshop to outline, define and agree a programme of work that supports these priorities.  This includes setting up a sub-group to bring together recruitment and retention experts from the different sectors and will be linked to any ICS wide work on recruitment and retention.

Following this a full programme of work will be presented to the People Board and Leadership Team for delivery over the next 12 months.