Workforce
Planning
Workforce planning has been an
expectation in mental health since the publication of
the National Service Framework for
Mental Health,10 DH (1999): Modern Standards and Service
Models: Mental Health National Service Framework,
September.
where mention was made of the
production of a joint, local workforce strategy.
The various NWW project groups have
all considered what the introduction of
NWW means for their particular staff
group and how this will need to feed into
workforce planning for the future. Put
simplistically, up to now workforce planning
has perhaps often concentrated on
numbers (supply and demand) based on the
existing staff groups. In the future,
with the emphasis on competences and
capabilities, workforce planning will
become more complex. For example, it will no
longer be appropriate simply to say we
have a nurse or occupational therapist staff
vacancy, so we should automatically
recruit another nurse or occupational therapist.
With the move to advertisements based
on competences and capabilities, and with
the growing use of the Creating
Capable Teams Approach (see below) a more service
user-led approach will be required.
Filling vacancies, for example, may mean having
existing staff extend their practice,
having a new role introduced – or, indeed,
replacing like with like. But this
last option should no longer be the automatic
choice, as it is now perhaps.
To help with the workforce planning
function, the NIMHE National Workforce
Programme developed a Workforce
Planning Pilot Programme (WPPP) to explore,
in practice, what the issues were and
to help test out the Best Practice Guidance
published by DH in March 2003.11 DH
(2003): Mental Health Services – Workforce Design and
Development: Best Practice Guidance. DH Publication Ref
31146.
Seven pilot sites were chosen, where
the aim was not just to help those particular sites but to
disseminate the lessons learnt by way of a report across all the
relevant stakeholder organisations.
Following an extensive two-year
programme of events – including local workshops,
site visits, preparation of supporting
materials, teleconferences, consideration of local
draft reports and plans, etc. – a
report on the WPPP was published in May 2006.12 NIMHE (2006):
Mental Health Services – Workforce Design and Development:
Report on the NIMHE National Workforce Planning Pilot Programme
(WPPP) – Best Practice. DH Publication Ref 274929. In
essence, the report set out a number of lessons learnt, with 10 key
points, as well as a number of resources to support the workforce
planning function. As part of the preparation for a local
integrated, joint workforce plan, the report also made a link to
mainstream health and social care policy by cross-referring to the
White Paper Our Health, Our Care, Our Say, where, on
pages 185–6, it says: ‘Key to closer integration will be joint
service and workforce planning. The NHS and local authorities need
tointegrate workforce planning into corporate and service
planning.’
It is important that, in taking
forward workforce planning, we do not just look at
greater numbers of the same type of
existing staff. The flexibilities and opportunities
offered by NWW and the new roles and
functions should form an integral part of the
process to recruit and retain a
workforce that is fit for purpose in a contemporary
mental health service.
Contact: John Allcock
at john.allcock@dh.gsi.gov.uk