NHS Workforce

Wednesday 16th February 2011, Royal Society - London, 09:30 - 15:45

Creating an Empowered, Engaged and Efficient National Health Service

Overview

With unprecedented strain on public finances, there is need for real change across the public sector. The NHS is one of the organisations that needs to change; the NHS has a target to plug a £20 billion hole in the deficit in its budget, despite its budget being ring fenced. The NHS has already been set the ambitious target of generating £20 billion in efficiency savings. Central to this will be an empowered, efficient and engaged workforce, operating at its full potential, who will also need to realise real efficiency savings of £4.35 billion of annual savings by 2014-2015.

A major issue impacting upon the NHS is sickness and absence in the workforce. It costs a estimated £1.75 billion annually, and The Boorman Review indicated that by making improvements in this area the NHS could save around £555 million a year.

In the NHS White paper: Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS, published 12th July 2010, the government outlined its plans for the most radical shake up of the NHS since its creation in 1948. For the workforce, these changes mean empowering and liberating clinicians to innovate, with the freedom to focus on improving healthcare services and systems. It also outlined a number of proposals to create an efficient, engaged and productive workforce, with the intention of cutting bureaucracy and administration costs by 45 per cent over the next four years. The new proposals to give GPs the power over commissioning will mean that they will need to have the skills necessary to commission services effectively and ensure services are delivered efficiently.

Figures published by the Office for National Statistics showed productivity within the NHS fell by 7.8% from 1995-2008. According to the Kings Fund, the NHS will require annual productivity gains of 3% and 4% to close the £20 billion funding gap. Engaging and empowering the workforce will improve the current level of efficiency and will enable the NHS to maintain quality and avoid service cuts.

With all NHS trusts moving towards Foundation Trust status, the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, wants some of these trusts to move to an employee owned model, with the hope that this approach will lead to higher productivity, greater innovation, better care and increased job satisfaction. The workforce will be central in delivering an efficient NHS focused on positive outcomes.

Agenda

With the NHS going through a period of radical change, this forum will provide delegates with a timely opportunity to discuss and debate the future of the NHS workforce. Delegates will hear from the key people involved in creating a productive, empowered and engaged workforce.

09:30	Registration and Coffee
10:00	Chair’s Welcome Address Professor Vari Drennan, Associate Dean for Research; Professor of Health Policy and Service Delivery, Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences (CONFIRMED)
10:10	Capability and Intelligence in the Workforce The role of the Centre for Workforce Intelligence in creating robust NHS and social care services Strengthening leadership within workforce planning Taking a longer-term view of workforce planning Evaluating the skills needed to meet patient’s needs Integrating workforce planning with service and financial planning Peter Sharp, Chief Executive, Centre for Workforce Intelligence (CONFIRMED)
10:30	The Changing Role of Nurses What does the White Paper mean for Nursing? Strengthening the power of nurses in working alongside GPs in making decisions about commissioning local health services Supporting nurses in change The importance of continual professional development Professor Val Lattimer, Head of School, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of East Anglia (CONFIRMED)
10:50	Questions and Answers Session
11:10	Coffee and Networking
11:35	Empowering Employees: Employee Ownership What is employee ownership work and will it work? The need to define what it means for your organisation Using employee ownership to drive productivity, increase engagement, reduce sickness and absence and foster innovation Linking social enterprise and employee ownership Case studies Carole Leslie, Policy Director, Employee Ownership Association (CONFIRMED)
11:55	Providing Services through Social Enterprise in Kingston Upon Thames Your Healthcare – A not-for-profit social enterprise provider arm to deliver community-based healthcare Responding to an independent review which shows that social enterprise was the most effective way of delivering high quality services for local people Inviting members of the community to become members of the organisation to give local people increased involvement in the design and delivery of local services Ensuring staff retain their NHS terms and conditions Progress so far Lessons to learn and share Brenda Hobson, Board Lead for Human Resources, Your Healthcare CIC (CONFIRMED)
12:15	Questions and Answers Session
12:30	Lunch and Networking
13:30	Afternoon Keynote Address: Creating and Maintaining a Healthy and Productive Workforce Recognising and strengthening the relationship between health and well-being and high quality care Reducing sickness and absence to deliver savings - £555 million annually Improving organisational behaviour and performance Developing and providing prevention centred services Ensuring staff are consulted on the provision of services Embedding staff health and well-being in NHS systems and structures Dr Steve Boorman, Review Team Leader, NHS Health and Well-being Review (CONFIRMED)
13:50	Case Study: Driving Health and Wellbeing in the Workforce – NHS Gloucestershire Making changes - Looking at how we make changes in our lives, and why it can sometimes be difficult to change Healthy lifestyles - Looking at healthy eating and physical activity, smoking and alcohol in broad principle Creating your work/life balance - Looking at how we spend our days both at work and at home Transforming your thoughts - How often do we misinterpret situations assuming the negative side rather than the positive side? Stress and how to prevent it happening! - Looking at some of the causes and solutions to stress. It will bring together much of the information in earlier module Kate Gregg, Public Health Manager, and Anthony Dallimore, Assistant Director, Communications, NHS Gloucestershire (CONFIRMED)
14:10	Questions and Answers Session
14:25	Coffee and Networking
14:50	Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention and the Workforce Embedding the workforce in QIPP Understanding the future mix and size of the workforce Ensuring the workforce underpins the QIPP programme Putting innovation at the heart of efficiency Ensuring there is the right skills and the right leadership Giles Wilmore, Director of Quality Framework & QIPP Programme, Department of Health (CONFIRMED)
15:10	Business Success and Employee Well-being: The Case for a New Cross-Government Approach Patrick Ladbury, Communications Manager, The National Social Marketing Foundation (CONFIRMED)
15:30	Questions and Answers Session
15:45	Chair's Closing Remarks and Close

*programme subject to change without notice

Audience

Delegates attending this forum will include heads of innovation programmes, medical directors, heads of clinical care, quality improvement directors, education governance managers, heads of medicine management and commissioning, directors of health divisions, human resource heads and directors, health and safety teams, absence managers, welfare and well-being teams, risk managers, heads of training, heads of operations, occupational health managers, contact centre managers and be drawn from central government, NHS trusts, PCT's, universities, the voluntary sector, local government and the private sector.