Earlier this month, Public Policy Projects published a report on Workforce and Talent Development – More Time to Care.
It notes that the NHS employs around 1.3million people in England while there are more than 1.5 million working in adult social care. This 1.5 million includes 895,000 care workers, 34,000 registered nurses and 23,000 social workers (including around 3,000 employed by the NHS). This adult social care workforce is distributed across 18,500 providers.
It covers the aptly named:
- Getting in – recruitment and diversity
- Getting on – development and innovation
- Getting through – wellbeing and retention
The foreword by Professor Mike Bewick says that they hope their proposals help stimulate long overdue action to develop an approach to health and social care that is fit for the digital age and value staff wellbeing, alongside the care of service users.
The report references Human: Solving the global workforce crisis in healthcare. A book we recently shared with guests at our last Leaders’ Dinner before Christmas.
There are many case studies included in the report – many from our own wonderful clients.
Some 20 recommendations are set out as follows:
Getting in - recruitment and diversity
- Ending the workforce blight
- Turning on the training taps
- Retaining students and trainees
- Widening access
- Ethical recruitment from overseas
Getting on – development and innovation
- Preparing the workforce for digitally driven healthcare
- Developing the digital skills of care workers
- Developing innovative clinical roles
- Regulating the professions
- The right role for virtual training
- Volunteers and reservists
Getting through - – wellbeing and retention
- Supporting mental wellbeing
- Addressing discrimination and inequality
The report concludes that “The NHS and social care are still seen by government and many stakeholders as separate entities with independent workforces that only integrate at their margins. Bringing the workforces of these two sectors together is key to providing the high quality, integrated health and care service that we all aspire to, with shared programmes of recruitment, training and retention to build system wide resilience. The new Integrated Care Systems provide the opportunity to make this happen”
Lots of food for thought for everyone across the health and care sector.
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