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Content ArticleIf the NHS is to meet the challenges ahead, the people profession, which comprises human resources and organisational development practitioners, has a key role to play in shaping the future. This includes steering organisations towards the vision set out within the People Plan: more people, working differently, in a compassionate and inclusive culture. The Government recently announced that additional funding will be invested in the NHS over the next three years, funded by a new Health and Social Care Levy and a rise in dividend tax. The people profession – working alongside other decision-makers in the NHS – will have a key role in optimising available resources and maximising the value of taxpayer investment, to support recovery of routine services, to tackle waiting lists, and to deliver the care that NHS patients need. This report sets out a vision for how the people profession will develop and work differently over the coming decade. It draws on the diversity of voices from across the profession and beyond. It also sets out a roadmap for action.
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Content ArticleThis report by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) outlines 10 indicators that NHS is under unsustainable pressure. It refutes claims by Government ministers that pressures on health and care services are sustainable, stating that disaster for the NHS can only be prevented by addressing workforce shortages.
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Content ArticleThe aim of this study was to derive a comprehensive list of nursing-sensitive patient outcomes (NSPOs) from published research on nurse staffing levels and from expert opinion. The authors identified strong evidence for a significant association between nurse staffing levels and NSPOs. The results may guide researchers in selecting NSPOs they might wish to prioritise in future studies.
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Content ArticleRisks should be reduced to the lowest reasonably practicable level by taking preventative measures, in order of priority. This table from the was developed by the construction industry’s Leadership and Worker Engagement Forum and sets out an ideal order to follow when planning to reduce risk from construction activities. This could be adapted for healthcare.
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Content ArticleIn October 2001 government chief nurses and other delegates from 66 countries met to discuss how best to deal with a common challenge—the global growth of nursing shortages. In this article, James Buchan looks at potential solutions and limitations. Although written in 2002, this is still relevant for today.
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Content ArticleFollowing the major disruption to postgraduate medical education during the last year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Education England (HEE) has worked with NHS England & NHS Improvement, NHS Employers, the Department of Health and Social Care, the General Medical Council, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, and others to support training recovery as an urgent priority and mitigate the impact of the pandemic on doctors in training.
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Content ArticleIn this blog, PC Barry Calder, Lead of the Metropolitan Police Service Disability Staff Association COVID Peer Support Group, raises concerns about the potential impact of long COVID on staff and organisations. He highlights that organisations can take proactive steps to mitigate the consequences of staff being affected by long COVID, such as staff absences and changes to job roles. He recommends that organisations: introduce regular contingency planning activities (such as COVID Resilience meetings) ensure managers are trained to support staff living with long COVID ensure occupational health and staff wellbeing services include support relevant to long COVID consider establishing peer support groups for affected staff.
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Content ArticleClinical pharmacists reduce medication errors and optimise the use of medication in critically ill patients, although actual staffing level and deployment of UK pharmacists is unknown. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the UK deployment of the clinical pharmacy workforce in critical care and compare this with published standards. The authors conclude that investment in pharmacy services is required to improve access to clinical pharmacy expertise at weekends, on MDT ward rounds and for other critical care activities.
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Content ArticleHealthcare settings are inherently hazardous places, with very unpredictable and complex working environments. These hazards and risks not only result in a range of injuries and ill-health among workers but also jeopardise the safety of patients. The COVID-19 crisis has amplified the importance of ensuring that the healthcare that is provided is safe—for patients and health workers alike. A sufficient, and capable, workforce, is the foundation of resilient systems. Policy makers need to focus now on how to build and support an appropriate workforce to respond to future shocks. This includes health workers beyond the hospital—including those in community, long-term, and primary care. The safety of both patients and health workers should be protected through appropriate mechanisms to ensure the safety of protective equipment and sufficient supplies, appropriate staffing levels, training and support at the workplace. These governance mechanisms are even more relevant when policy makers face trade-offs between health, safety and economic concerns. This is part of series of health working papers from the OECD on the economics of patient safety. The preceding paper, focusing on Long-term care, can be found here.
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Content ArticleAs COVID-19 hit England last spring, the health service faced workforce shortages of over 100,000 staff. Around 40% of the staffing shortfall was in nursing. Capacity constraints of all kinds have been an important backdrop to the management of the pandemic. Equipment and buildings matter, but throughout COVID-19 the key risk was not having enough staff to safely treat all the patients needing care. Anita Charlesworth discusses what action is now required.
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Content ArticleThe Royal College of Nursing (RCN)’s 'Nursing Workforce Standards' have been created to explicitly set out what must happen within workplaces to ensure the delivery of safe and effective patient care. The RCN's Nursing Workforce Standards are the first ever blueprint for tackling the nursing staff shortage levels across the UK. They set the standard for excellent patient care and nursing support in all settings, and all UK countries. Developed by the RCN's Professional Nursing Committee, the Nursing Workforce Standards suggest a roadmap for designing a workforce in both the NHS and the wider health and social care sector that can offer patients the quality of care they deserve. The 14 standards – the first of their kind – have been designed for use by those who fund, plan, commission, design, review and provide services which require a nursing workforce. They can also be used to help nursing staff understand what they should expect to be in place to enable them to do their jobs safely and effectively. The standards apply across the whole of the UK and to every setting where nursing care is delivered. They’re being launched as new polling reveals seven in 10 people believe there are too few nurses to provide safe care. Of the 1,752 members of the public who were surveyed, more than a quarter said they felt themselves or their families may not get the care required when needed.
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Content ArticleThe NHS risks losing thousands of nurses, doctors and other key workers in the longer term unless they are given the time and space to recover from the pandemic. Without this, the Government will fail to meet its key manifesto target of recruiting an extra 50,000 nurses, and it will take even longer for the NHS to address the impact of the pandemic on waiting times and other services. The NHS Confederation report warns that staff need to recovery time following the past 12 months. The NHS Confederation, which represents the whole health system, is calling on the Government to act now to avert a staffing crisis in the NHS as the country prepares to emerge from a year of restrictions. With the NHS still facing the threat from coronavirus and a massive backlog of treatment, there is a real risk that exhausted NHS staff may leave their roles unless expectations of their workload mean they are allowed time to recover.
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Content ArticleIn July 2020, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges in conjunction with the BMA, NHS Confederation, NHS Providers, RCN and UNISON produced a joint statement on the NHS workforce. The statement concluded that addressing the NHS and social care workforce issues is the best possible recognition of the hard work and dedication of staff during the pandemic. It will also be essential if the NHS and social care are to deliver for the public in the months and years ahead. The NHS led Covid vaccination programme has given the nation hope and we are now able to look ahead and think about life beyond the pandemic. It is now the time to take practical steps to provide long term and sustainable workforce solutions for the NHS and care system. This Academy statement focuses on the need for a clear process for workforce planning which aims for consensus over requirements. There is genuine enthusiasm for looking differently at how we do things throughout the NHS and care system post-pandemic and we must not let this opportunity to embed changes that improve the quality of care for patients, the health of the public and the experience for staff pass by.
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Content ArticleWe need a twin track approach in workforce planning – one for the medium-term and other for the long-term – writes Rob Smith, Director of Workforce Planning and Intelligence, Health Education England, in this HSJ article.
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Content ArticleThis guidance has been designed to support providers of care homes, premises based support services, school care accommodation, secure care and premises based offender accommodation to ensure they are appropriately assessing and providing staffing levels to meet the needs of people in their care, following the removal of staffing schedules. Inspectors may also refer to this guidance on inspection, for instance where intelligence may lead us to believe that staffing levels are not being appropriately assessed. Examples of this may be evidence of poor outcomes for people, an increase in incidents, number of complaints, staff absence, or a complaint investigation.
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Content ArticleThe Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) programme has now been collecting data on race inequality for five years, holding up a mirror to the service and revealing the disparities that exist for black and minority ethnic staff compared to their white colleagues. The findings of this report do not make for a comfortable read, and nor should they. The evidence from each WRES report over the years has shown that our black and minority ethnic staff members are less well represented at senior levels, have measurably worse day to day experiences of life in NHS organisations, and have more obstacles to progressing in their careers. The persistence of outcomes like these is not something that any of us should accept. It is in recognition of these realities that the People Plan 2020/21 has ‘belonging’ as one of its four pillars.
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The gap between doctor supply and patient need is widening each year. This report, from the British Medical Association: illustrates how severe medical workforce shortages in England have become demonstrates how the situation will worsen based on anticipated population growth and demographic changes without significant and swift intervention from Government analyses trends in the medical workforce up to 2021 highlights the value of the doctor to the health of patients. -
Content ArticleThis article is an open letter in the BMJ to the secretary of state describing ways to address past mistakes and suggesting 10 urgent actions.
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HPMA newsletters
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Leadership for patient safety
The Healthcare People Management Association (HPMA) is the professional voice of HR in healthcare. Set up over 40 years ago, it has over 4,000 members ranging from HR directors and deputy directors through to trusts and CCGs. Its aim is to support and develop HR staff to improve the people management contribution in healthcare and ultimately improve patient care. -
Content ArticleImproving patient safety culture (PSC) is a significant priority for OECD countries as they work to improve healthcare quality and safety—a goal that has increased in importance as countries have faced new safety concerns connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings from this OECD benchmarking work in PSC show that there is significant room for improvement.
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Content ArticleThe serious and growing workforce crisis in the NHS and social care is the biggest, most pressing threat to the viability of services for people who need them. COVID-19, Brexit, and points based immigration rules have accelerated issues around recruitment, retention, workload, and wellbeing that were already affecting the workforce even before the pandemic. What we need is a relentless focus on implementing solutions, resourcing them properly, and reporting progress, writes David Oliver in this BMJ article.
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The Integrator: The discharge debacle (HSJ, 13 January 2022)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Discharge
HSJ’s inboxes are currently heaving with frustration and fury on a rare consistency of theme; the build up of medically fit patients who can’t be discharged from hospitals. Here’s one example from an exasperated, experienced manager, who spoke of “real failure in social care – long stays growing and no capacity to discharge to, a. Homes closed due to infection, b. Homes going out of business c. Homes unable to come and assess patients as no spare staff, d. No care packages as staff sick or none available due to lack of capacity e. social workers and others needed to make assessments in very short supply”. “We keep getting told we’ll cope and get through but we’re really not… The will to continue is beginning to break down with refusals to redeploy and high sickness absence on top of enforced absence due to covid. A seemingly mad commitment to grind through elective stuff… -
Content ArticleThis report by the Health and Social Care Commons Select Committee looks at the catastrophic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on patients waiting for NHS care and outlines the findings of the Select Committee's inquiry. Waiting lists are at their highest since records began, and the 5.8 million patients waiting to start treatment in September 2021 may be only the tip of the iceberg, with missing patients meaning that the true waiting list could be as high as 13 million. The report highlights the need to carefully plan how to tackle the elective care backlog. It outlines the risks involved, including the danger of prioritising areas that are well suited to numerical targets to the detriment of other areas of care, such as mental health, general practice and community services. It also highlights that the challenges the NHS faces are greater than just tackling elective care. With a record number of 999 calls and waiting times in emergency departments at record levels, work to tackle the backlog is being threatened by pressure on emergency care.
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Content ArticleIt’s time to think more radically about the way we plan the healthcare workforce, says Alison Leary, professor of healthcare and workforce modelling at London South Bank University and the University of South Eastern Norway, in this BMJ Opinion article.
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Content ArticleIn this article in Becker's Hospital Review, Mackenzie Bean highlights five of the most pressing safety issues for healthcare systems and hospitals to address in 2022:Foundational safety workSupporting the healthcare workforceIntegrating equity into safety workDiagnostic harmHealthcare-associated infections
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