On the 12 December 19, on behalf of LOOP, I was invited to attend the Westminster Health Forum Policy Conference which was focusing on “The health workforce and key issues for the NHS people plan: leadership, staff wellbeing and professional regulation.
The morning started with a panel of mixed back ground. Each speaker was given 5 minutes to present and most kept to this.
The main themes revolved around staff wellbeing, staff retention and staff recruitment. There also was discussion around leadership and the need for good leadership. A question asked was “How can we expect staff to care for others if they are not cared for themselves?”
To retain staff the NHS needs to possibly look at more flexible working patterns. Bank staff need to be more nurtured by offering proper inductions. Staff at all levels need to be well supervised and supported and feel able to approach their manager if they need any support.
Managers and leaders need to approach the wellbeing of staff in the way they approach the wellbeing of patients. Staff need to be given time for CPD. Some staff may have quite traumatic experiences in day to day working and the stress and anxiety that this may cause needs to be paid close attention to.
We then moved to Sir James MacKay, CEO of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust talking about the role of local Leaders in delivering the NHS Long tern plan. His trust is the 2nd highest ranked acute trust in the country. He described how he ran his trust across several sites. His overall message was “get rid of complexity and keep it simple”
Kisten Armit from the Faculty of medical leadership then talked about Medical Leadership in the NHS. Leadership is rarely promoted as a pathway for Doctors. This needs to be addressed as good leadership will end up saving lives.
Dame Jane Dacre has lead and independent review into the gender pay gap. Only Doctors have been looked at. There is a gap. The NHS needs to promote its women. Motherhood should not be a penalty.
Phil Martin from the GMC talked about work force shortages amongst Doctors. 254,000 licenced Doctors across the UK with a significant proportion from abroad. It is a concern though that a 1/3 of doctors want to leave, 1/3 want to reduce their hours, 1/5 plan to go part time and 1/5 plan to go abroad. Doctors need to be able to feel that they have some control in their work environment and this will help retention.
To end the morning Tom Kark QC spoke about his review of the “Fit and proper persons test”
This test came about after the mid Staffordshire enquiry. Persons running the NHS need to be competent. When CQC go through a well led review they are just looking at the systems not the people. We need to move towards creating a database of directors that measure up to core compensates and they must have mandatory references.
Heather Bell,
Lead orthoptist.
