NHS England and Improvement are asking health care systems to accelerate work to transform and grow the substantive workforce as part of their 2022/23 priorities and operational planning guidance (Section A, Page 8).
As the NHS continues to respond to and recover from the pandemic, we welcome the first key priority mentioned in the guidance – to “invest in our workforce”.
The operational planning guidance makes it clear that our immediate focus must continue to be the health, wellbeing, safety and retention of our current NHS staff. In addition, there is a recognition that to support the recovery of health services we need more people working flexibly to deliver high quality care in the most efficient and effective way. There is a necessity to grow our NHS workforce to meet future demands whilst addressing the immediate need to resource substantive gaps in acute care in particular.
The NHS Workforce Alliance can support your 2022/23 workforce operational plans to retain and grow staff for the future by providing:
- A workforce support portfolio designed to support employee physical and mental health and wellbeing. This includes enhanced psychological support services to support those NHS staff who have dealt with numerous traumatic events as a consequence of the pandemic
- Procurement solutions to expand international recruitment through ethical recruitment of high quality nurses and midwives
- Category expertise to enable NHS trusts to make the most effective use of temporary staffing
- Workforce advisory services to expand collaborative system banks and reduce reliance on high-cost agency staff
We are acutely aware of the stress the NHS system is currently under to meet the combined demands of the current Omicron wave, general winter pressures, and the imperative to reduce waiting lists.
Please do not hesitate to contact us to understand how we can help you meet the operational workforce plan and priorities set out in the NHSEI guidance.