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How workforce innovation is helping implement the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan

Written by: Tracey Walker - 31st October 2024

In this blog Tracey Walker, Director of Delivery at Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, explores the challenges faced by the health and care workforce and discusses how we are aligned with, and supporting, the aims of the NHS Long Term Workforce plan.

Thanks to the advancements in medicine, people are living longer. The number of people aged over 85 is estimated to grow 55% by 2037, but this means that we will need an even bigger workforce to cope with the increasing number of people needing care. In response to this, the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is the first comprehensive workforce plan aimed at ensuring sustainability and enhancing patient care.
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Here at Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, we acknowledge the challenges faced across the health and social care workforce, and in response, were the first health innovation network to introduce a workforce portfolio dedicated to supporting our system partners in this critical area. It was this early response, and understanding our partners regional and local priorities, that allowed us to develop our networks with key stakeholders and build our expertise.

So how can we align what we’re doing with the NHS priorities? The Long Term Workforce Plan clearly states:

 ‘Inaction in the face of demographic change is forecast to leave us with a shortfall of between 260,000 and 360,000 staff by 2036/37. The lack of a sufficient workforce, in number and mix of skills, is already impacting patient experience, service capacity and productivity.’

The plan is underpinned by three pillars, train, retain and reform and the work we lead on in these in these areas works to mitigate against the lack of sufficient workforce within the NHS. While our work maps across all three pillars, the biggest area of contribution is to the reform pillar, where we are leading or supporting innovative projects to reform the NHS workforce.

The Workforce Challenge Hub is an ongoing partnership initiative with NHS England North East and Yorkshire enabling the sharing, learning and scaling of workforce transformation across our region. By integrating NHS England’s workforce knowledge with our innovation expertise, the hub serves as a channel for consolidating knowledge, providing guidance, and fostering learning opportunities while leading a number of workforce transformation initiatives. I’m pleased to say our website is now live and will act as your go-to resource for support, guidance and inspiration.

The West Yorkshire and Harrogate Mental Health Trust Collaborative Staff Bank is a collaboration between ourselves, Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, South West Yorkshire NHS Foundation Trust and Bradford District Care Trust. Aligned with NHS England’s priority of building capability and capacity, the Collaborative Staff Bank is increasing the number of temporary workers available to fill shifts where they are needed most, ensuring that staffing levels are safe, quality of care is maintained and our workforce have increased flexibility to balance life and work. Over the coming months we also expect to see a reduction in agency spend.

Following the successful implementation of the West Yorkshire Mental Health Collaborative Staff Bank, we are now collaborating with Humber North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) to implement a Nursing and Midwifery Collaborative Bank across the five trusts within the ICB in 2024/25.

We also collaborate with a range of other partners to support the health and social care workforce. We’ve been evaluating the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven technologies on the workforce and supporting the implementation of a peer support network for people who experience trauma at work. We continue to support the acceleration of remote monitoring and digital wards and at home testing kits which transform the smartphone camera into a clinical-grade medical device to free up workforce capacity.

Our white paper ‘Empowering local places for health and prosperity: new perspectives from Yorkshire and the Humber’, produced in collaboration with NHS Confederation and Yorkshire Universities, outlined a number of important recommendations that organisations could take to support the relationship between improved health outcomes and sustained economic growth.

Two of these recommendations focused on how organisations could support their workforce:

  1. Take action to support their employees’ health and wellbeing, taking advantage of available support and best practice.
  2. Larger businesses should adopt and amplify best practice in supporting employee wellbeing, setting action plans and targets and monitoring progress.

Good employment is a key factor of health and prosperity, as covered in our recent Health and Work campaign, and contributes towards wider regional economic growth through increased productivity. Our work as Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber aims to support the NHS workforce while considering the region’s wider workforce at the same time.

If you have any questions or would like any further information on how we can support you with complex workforce challenges please contact us.