High Quality Workforce
1. What is the HQW programme aiming to achieve?
2. How is the programme’s work going to be structured?
3. How long will it take to complete the programme?
4. Who is leading the programme?
5. How will the programme affect the SHA and EMHWD workforce?
6. Are you involving the unions in this process?
7. How does the programme relate to the Next Stage Review?
8. Can you tell me a bit more about HIECs?
9. Shouldn’t the work of the SHA be continually aimed at improving patient care? How is this programme contributing to that?
Questions and Answers
1. What is the HQW programme aiming to achieve?
The programme was initiated to build structures within which we will be able to more effectively deliver education and training to all clinical professionals. This not just about medical training, but also includes all Allied Health Professionals as well as, nurses, medical scientists, dentists, midwives - in fact anyone with a patient facing, clinical role.
Through the integration of local planning and national initiatives, the HQW programme aimed to ensure that the correct structures are in place to enable the commissioning of education and training which will place the right professionals in the right places at the right time. It covers workforce planning and the funding of training and education as well as changes to the over-arching HR structures which will be needed to make the new system work, and governance processes to ensure proper oversight of the new systems.
The programme will involve new recruits to the system – undergraduate medical students, for example, as well as post graduates and those already in clinical posts whose careers will progress over time.
We recognise that a large number of our people are already practicing professionals and the new processes will provide them with a simpler route to additional training or education throughout their careers.
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2. How was the programme’s work structured?
We divided the programme work into 7 projects or work streams. These are:
a) Workforce Development Planning: aimed to establish a process for ensuring that workforce plans are robust and clearly articulated; clarify roles and responsibilities of the various parts of the system; integrate risk management and quality assurance mechanisms and define links to the planned national Centre for Workforce Intelligence as this comes into being.
b) Reform of Education Funding: will make the current process for MPET (funding) allocations more transparent through the implementation of a tariff based system where funding will follow individual trainees through their training. This will better enable education commissioners to hold providers to account for quality and outcomes.
c) Career Management and Role Development: will look at how the roles of healthcare professionals will need to change in the future to incorporate the additional facets of practitioner, partner and leader, and the implications for career and education pathways that this imposes.
d) Commissioner/Provider Arrangements in Education: aims to apply the principles of world class commissioning to medical and non medical education through the clear separation of commissioner and provider roles within the East Midlands Healthcare Workforce Deanery (EMHWD), with the aim of providing assurance to all stakeholders that we are delivering maximum benefit from the substantial educational resources that we invest.
e) Employment Enablers: aims to develop HR frameworks to support the organisational changes arising from the changes to commissioner/provider arrangements. It will ensure that the impact of HQW has been assessed, risks identified and mitigation plans put in place.
f) Health Innovation Education Clusters (HIEC): are partnerships between healthcare education & training providers and industry, research and innovation, whose aim is to improve quality and the responsiveness of education to service need.
g) Regional Advisory Mechanisms: will put in place clinical advice and scrutiny processes to look at workforce development and education investment plans and advise on their structure and content. It is proposed that a panel of clinical advisors should be brought together twice a year, in spring and autumn, to deliver this scrutiny.
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3. How long will it take to complete the programme?
We aim to have the programme completed by the summer of 2010 with the new commissioner / provider arrangements in place by April 2010.
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4. Who is leading the programme?
The programme overall is being lead by a full time Programme Manager who involved other managers within the SHA as project leaders for the 7 work streams. These project leaders are incorporating this work into their day to day roles.
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5. How will the programme affect the SHA and EMHWD workforce?
Initially, there were people who worked within the SHA and the East Midlands Healthcare Workforce Deanery (EMHWD) whose roles were divided between both commissioner and provider tasks. As part of the programme, we aimed to separate these roles to provide greater objectivity and focus. This involved some changes to the jobs which some of our people do day to day.
We will be scoping these changes as the process proceeds as part of the Employment Enablers work stream and will be ensuring that all staff affected are fully informed and consulted in line with current employment law and good practice.
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6. Are you involving the unions in this process?
Yes – we are keeping our representatives fully informed and involved as the programme proceeds and will continue to do so.
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7. How does the programme relate to the Next Stage Review?
The Next Stage Review provides a structured vision for the future of patient care and the way that care is delivered, structured into a number of areas of care. It is now forming the core of our plans for improvement in patient care throughout the region.
It is implicit within the requirements of the review that there can’t be any improvement in patient care if the staff who deliver it are not fully and properly trained and skilled and working in adequate numbers in the right places.
Clearly, there are already a great many well trained, highly competent and committed people delivering clinical care within the NHS in the East Midlands. The High Quality Workforce programme acknowledges that we need to make changes to the ways in which we commission the training that they receive in order to maximise resource - financial and human. This will ensure that our training and education processes deliver professionals with the right skills in the right numbers to ensure that our population receives the care it needs, when and where it needs it.
The programme aims to remove any imbalances between the number of professionals trained and the numbers required, through making the process more demand driven and based on analysis of future needs.
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8. Can you tell me a bit more about HIECs?
The Department of Health is investing £10 million in the introduction of Health Innovation and Education Clusters (HIECs) across England. HIECs will be partnerships between NHS, higher education, industry and other public and private sector organisations and will support the spread and adoption of innovation locally and strengthen professional education and training. Please refer to the Department of health web site for more information.
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9. Shouldn’t the work of the SHA be continually aimed at improving patient care? How is this programme contributing to that?
The SHA is working to implement the requirements of the Next Stage Review both through programmes initiated within the authority for dissemination around the region and through supporting and enabling campaigns in our 23 related trusts.
By changing the way in which we commission education and training, we will re-align the supply of different clinical services more closely with demand for those services at the “sharp end” of service delivery. In other words, we’ll have enough clinical specialists with the right specialist training, and the right allied health professionals, scientists etc to support them.
This should improve patient access, relieve workload pressure, avoid wasted effort, improve career paths and heighten morale. All of this has got to be good for patient care.
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