- In many sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs) and integrated care systems (ICSs), strong relationships are borne out of the recognition of shared motivation to improve patient care, grow the workforce and make best use of resources in a challenging financial climate. System leaders taking forward this work describe coming together around a shared aim, and recognising that organisations have commonalities which leaders can rally around to develop joined-up workforce solutions – across recruitment and retention, training, and skills gaps.
- System working can help address workforce challenges but this will require a significant shift in how the NHS operates, transforming culture to make close working and crossboundary relationships part of the day-to-day business of frontline staff, as well as getting leaders from across the system together to engage in joint strategic planning.
- By definition, system working involves the input of organisations beyond the NHS alone. Primary care, social care, the voluntary sector and wider system partners such as emergency services all play a key role. There is an opportunity to use workforce initiatives as a driver of cross-boundary working in order to facilitate integrated care and put in place care pathways that provide people with a streamlined journey through services.
- With over 100,000 vacancies in the NHS there is a pressing need for systems to think differently about how they attract people to work in the local health and care sector. System working offers an opportunity to move beyond disparate and competitive recruitment initiatives and address the wider workforce needs by offering people varied, flexible careers within a place.
- As part of the drive to offer staff incentives to stay in the system, trusts are seeking to collaborate with local partners to make it easier for staff to move between organisations. Initiatives like rotation agreements and staff ‘passports’ have the dual benefit of creating a varied developmental employment offer for staff who might otherwise look outside of the system for new opportunities, and creating a more efficient mechanism for filling vacancies where they arise.
- Our workforce has a substantial role to play in driving the progress of system working. How we work with our valued workforce to enable closer relationships between trusts and other health and care organisations, and how we support staff throughout periods of change and transformation, will be an important determinant of how systems work in collaboration to tackle workforce pressures and drive integrated care.