Agenda item

The Committee received a report that provided an update on the progress of the NW London Workforce programmes. The Central and North West London NHS Trust Director of HR and OD, briefly outlined the following:

·                 The main risk had been the working capacity through winter, multiple factors were highlighted that could potentially impact capacity: sickness of staff; the uptake of staff vaccination and turnover of staff.  In addition, it was important to support staff to take leave they need balanced with having effective capacity throughout this period, with a keeping well service launched for all staff on a referral basis.

·                  Recruitment over the past six months saw over a 1000 staff recruited that related to the vaccination programme as well as new roles within the NHS.

The Chair thanked them for the presentation and opened the floor to questions from the Committee which were answered as follows:

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·                 A Member raised the point of challenges of staff retention and recruitment and wanted clarification over how the ICS had planned to tackle these.  The ICS Chief Executive noted that a lot of work had been undertaken in each organisation across north west London and would continue.

·                 The Central and North West London NHS Trust Director of HR and OD added that there were workforce race equality standards in place and that Trusts had been set challenging standards and a leadership ladder programme was in place to support BAEM staff get into more senior roles.

·                 A Member asked in regard to patient voice, how would it be ensured that between the news structures of the ICP and ICS how would the links between the two bodies manifest and for patient voices to be included. The Director of Communications and Engagement at NW London ICS explained that in early 2022 it had been planned to undertake public events where residents could contribute their thoughts in context to the inequalities framework.

·                 A member raised the concern of staff under pressure and wanted to know the number of unfilled posts, particularly for frontline roles.  The Central and North West London NHS Trust Director of HR and OD explained that across health and social care there was an employment gap of circa 12,000 roles.  However, it had been planned to employ 1,000 new staff within the NHS by March 2022.  In addition, an analysis had revealed where frontline gaps were with targeted programmes made for these issues to be addressed. 

The Chair thanked health colleagues for their responses and closed the discussion.  The Committee were invited to make recommendations with the following:

RESOLVED:  That an update be presented to JHOSC on recruitment, employment gaps and the range of work that had been undertaken.

As well as recommendations, a number of requests for information were made during the discussion, recorded as follows:

i.                For the health and wellbeing offer to be sent to the Committee by the CNWL Director of HR and OD.

ii.               For information on the leadership ladder programme to be sent to the Committee by the CNWL Director of HR and OD.