NHS & Social Care Workforce Recruitment & Retention – it’s time for a ‘More & Different’ approach

An innovative approach to NHS and social care recruitment and retention was presented during Breaking Barriers Innovations (BBI) recent More and Different – Improving Pathways into Employment workshop.

This event showcased BBI’s new model and approach, which focuses on ‘growing’ a health and social care workforce that has the grass roots connectivity and ‘the knowledge’ of local communities. This model also addresses organisational culture and changes to HR recruitment processes.  This is essential to ensure that a different type of workforce, drawn and recruited from the local community and potentially with lived experience can thrive.

We frequently hear that the recruitment and retention of the health and social care workforce is extremely challenging and there is a particularly high staff turnover within the social care sector.

In 2021/ 2022, NHS vacancies totaled 133,446 and social care vacancies totaled 165,000.

Estimated by 2030/31:

• Extra 488,000 healthcare staff needed to meet demand – equivalent of 40% increase in workforce, double the growth seen in the last decade
• Extra 627,000 social care staff needed – 55% growth over the next decade and 4 times greater than the increases of the last 10 years.

So this event demonstrated how to create and implement new employment pathways that focus on the recruitment of people from new and different talent pools from a diverse range of backgrounds, who normally might not consider jobs and careers in these sectors.

This includes young people in the care system or NEET (not in education, employment or training), people who are long-term unemployed and people with neurodiversity issues.

We believe that this innovative approach holds immense potential for transforming recruitment and retention in the health and care sectors and enabling the growth of the NHS and social care workforce.  In fact, we have recently developed a Lived Experience Leadership Pathway and Guide for NHSE.  This focused on a non-clinical, competency-based leadership pathway within health and justice services for people with lived experience of the criminal justice system.  It is briefly featured in the attached presentation.

The ‘More & Different’ approach generated much excitement during the event and a desire to drive forward change, as one attendee commented:

“We need to improve inclusiveness and to think about how we engage people with different talents…. how do we ensure people with lived experience can come into the workplace – we are missing a trick by not engaging with people with life experience.” (NHS England)

We have been collaborating with several Integrated Care Systems to advance this work and during the event, a number of organisations expressed interested in working with us to develop employment pathways for a variety of cohorts:

“Inspiring stuff…… The cohorts mentioned are all relevant to us with a particular focus on carers, young people and those with disabilities.” (Surrey County Council)

“All of the cohorts would be of interest, with a particular interest in Black, Asian and ethnic minorities – a recent hiring event for care roles evidenced to us …. there is a huge interest from this specific demographic that are experiencing barriers.” (NHS Derby)

The NHS and social care sectors can no longer carry on ‘fishing’ for staff in the same old depleted pools and hope for a different result.  If our health and social care services are to survive, we need to tackle major workforce issues now.

We are confident that by working together with organisations and partners to create appropriate employment pathways we can bring about positive change in the recruitment and retention of the health and social care workforce sectors.

If you would like to learn more about our ‘More and Different’ programme, the progress we’ve made, and the difference it could make to your Integrated Care System, we’d be happy to meet with you.

Contacts: Jacqui Gibson jacqui.gibson@bbi.uk.com and Sherife Hasan sherife.hasan@bbi.uk.com

ACCESS THE FULL PRESENTATION

To read the full presentation, please click the link below