Priorities
The Wakefield Health and Social Care Academy
We will develop a Wakefield Integrated Health and Social Care Academy. Initially we will explore the potential for a virtual Wakefield Health and Social Care Academy, including induction, a joint learning platform, training and development products scaled up and rolled out across Wakefield.
As part of this we will strengthen links with local communities, Universities, Education and learning providers. We will use this joint this joint approach to develop new roles.
The Academy is a key partner in responding to the city’s workforce challenges and our programmes have been developed under five key priorities:
The Academy will create a talent pipeline, suppporting staff across the system from entry into the sector through through a vriety of training and education pathways. It will support system leadership, developing the skills and behaviours required to commission and deliver integrated care. It will improve the quality of care by facilitaing the sharing of good practice across organisational and professional boundaries. It will also deliver essential training programmmes to health and social care staff across the system.
The Academy will support the development of new roles and new ways of working by developing and delivering training programmes for care navigation, trusted assessors, reablement, telemedicine, mental health navigators and social prescribing.
International recruitment
We will explore the potential for a system-wide approach to international recruitment. There is a strong argument for the conducting internationl recruitment campaign as a place, with properly coordinated support packages, a variety of jobs on offer and a coordianted approach to recruitment.
Addressing workforce supply issues
Wakefield faces workforce shortages across the whole health and care sector. The social care sector in particular is facing significant recruitment and retention challenges. One consequence of the pandemic has been a significant increase in applicants for healthcare courses across our higher education institutes (HEIs). However, the number of learners that the system can support is constrained by the availability of appropriate placements Addressing known workforce supply issues is a key priority.
As part of this priority we will work with partners on the development of a collaborative bank across NHS Providers in Wakefield. We will build on the redeployment process and MoU for shared staff redeployment developed during the pandemic. We will also explore ways in which we can enable staff who are approaching retirement to stay in the local H&SC workforce
Adult Social Care Recruitment and Retention
The Wakefield People Board has identified significant issues with recruitment and retention in the domiciliary care and care home workforce. These issues are having an impact on the whole health and social care economy. There is a particualr impact on our ability to discharge patients from hospital who require support at home. This issue requires a system-led approach so we will explore ways in which we can support the suusatinability of domiciliary care and care homes.
As part of this project we will develop the role of the “Trainee Healthcare Assistant” as an entry route into H&SC.
Advanced Clinical Practitioners (ACPs):
There are currently around 480 trainee ACPs in West Yorkshire working. We will explore the potential for a system-led approach to recruitment and management of Advanced Care Practitioners. Rather than separate organisations competing for resources and poaching staff from each other we will look at the whether a more collaborative system approach can be taken to recruitment, training and resource allocation. We will explore the potential for a similar approach to Trainee Nurse Associates (TNAs).
Placement Capacity and Learning Environments
Our Health Education England supported Learning Environment and Placement (LEAP) is bringing together partners to explore the opportunities for health and care placement expansion. We will support the expansion of placement capacity including blended placements within the HEE and HRD teams.
We will develop and implement a Wakefield District Learning Needs Analysis Framework. We will also ensure plans and processes in place to support our education and training pipeline.
Apprenticeships
We explore the potential for pooling the Apprenticeship Levy so that we can optimise the use of this resource across the system. This approach could lso ensure that we target the levy at communities who are under represented in the workforce.
