Category: Workforce

Digital Implementation, Featured, News, Workforce

AI, simulation and innovation: Navigating the future of healthcare education

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AI and digital simulation are reshaping healthcare education, offering new opportunities for efficiency, training, and patient care. At the Council of Deans of Health’s Digital Summit 2025, experts explored the promise and challenges of AI integration, from regulatory concerns to the ethical implications of its use in clinical decision-making.

On 28th January 2025, the Council of Deans of Health’s Digital Summit 2025 welcomed 130 attendees from across leadership and academic roles within the healthcare sector, to discuss and debate the current and future direction of digital health.

Following a virtual welcome from the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, Chi Onwurah MP, JISC Director of AI, Michael Webb, discussed the rapidly evolving state of AI adoption within education and healthcare, and the need for regulatory and legislative frameworks to keep pace. Webb argued that we are now into the ‘early reality’ stage of AI adoption, and despite numerous teething problems, AI tools are now so embedded within many digital services that people often do not realise they are using them.

A key aspect of the government’s focus on AI has been efficiency, with the Department for Education a major early investor. The Department is currently exploring the possibility of coding the entire national curriculum, estimating that this could increase the accuracy of automated marking from 30 per cent to 90 per cent, saving teachers a substantial amount of time that could be better used elsewhere.

However, as AI moves into mature operational use, and its input into human lives and decision-making processes increases, it will be increasingly critical to reach a consensus regarding its ethical and responsible use, as well as ensuring that those tasked to use it are able to do so safely and ethically. Webb called on leaders and regulators to set clear boundaries to enable safe exploration of AI, and to create cultures that value curiosity, critical thinking, and progressive human development.

Embedding digital transformation in the future health workforce

This panel examined the need to embed digital literacy into healthcare education to create a healthcare workforce equipped to use technology effectively and meet the future needs of the NHS. Professor Natasha Phillips, Founder of Future Nurse, argued that the pace of technological innovation has outstripped that of pedagogical practice, often placing digitally native students ahead of educators in terms of digital capability. Professor Phillips called for action from regulators to address this disparity, ensuring that the future workforce is prepared to deliver digitally led healthcare.

“We need to weave digital transformation into everything we do and pay attention to people and processes; technological transformation can’t happen without people.”

Professor Natasha Phillips, Founder, Future Nurse

Stating that we stand “on the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution”, Professor Sultan Mahmud, Director of Healthcare at BT Group, made the case for a cultural shift at leadership levels to truly embed digital tools and methods. He observed that a key driver of innovation with NHS trusts is often the personal attitude and culture of those in leadership positions, which can vary substantially from person to another, arguing that “board members not knowing anything about health technology can’t be acceptable”.

(L-R) Professor Natasha Phillips, Founder, Future Nurse; Professor Sultan Mahmud, Director of Healthcare, BT Group; Ed Hughes, Chief Executive, Council of Deans of Health

“The only way is ethics”

Much time was devoted to discussions concerning AI – including the ethical implications of using AI to facilitate and deliver healthcare, alongside its use as an educational tool. Sundeep Watkins, an Education Advisor to the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said that AI must be there to supplement and inform, not replace, humans’ clinical and critical judgement. With AI promising to play a critical role in diagnostics, treatment, communication and education, ethical considerations must be at the core of AI’s use and embedded in the way that technology users are taught to ensure that data biases or deficits do not translate to unequal or inequitable care delivery.

“In AI datasets, critical information is often missing – and if you don’t know what’s missing, you don’t know what’s missing.”

David Game, SVP Global Product for Medical Education, Elsevier

Regulatory organisations have started to consider how they might apply the right levels of oversight to this rapidly changing environment, confirmed Jamie Hunt, Head of Education at the Health and Care Professions Council. Paul Stern, a Senior Researcher and Policy Officer at the General Osteopathic Council, reiterated the importance of regulatory oversight of AI to ensure equitable access in education. He added that regulators are now working together with a view to developing a cross-sector regulatory framework for AI’s use in education to reduce regulatory overlap.

AI and associated technologies have the potential to be ubiquitous within simulated medical education and training within the next decade, underscoring the need for effective regulation to render their use safe, effective and equitable. Professor Paula Holt MBE, a Senior Adviser for Nursing at the Nursing and Midwifery Council, explained that for nurses-in-training, 600 of the 2,300 training hours required to register can be completed through simulated training, “allowing students to practice and reflect in a safe, and psychologically safe, environment.” Students like simulated training, added Professor Holt, as they feel it offers an equitable practice environment, and can help them learn to deal with difficult, real-world situations like receiving abuse or racism, or a medical emergency.

Panel covering The pedagogy of AI: implications for healthcare education

Professor Sharon Weldon, Professor of Healthcare Simulation and Workforce Development at the University of Greenwich, argued that simulation could be a key tool for attracting a newer generation of healthcare professionals, saying that “fewer and fewer, especially young people, want to go into healthcare. Simulation and AI are their worlds, and we have to embrace it to attract these people.”

“AI is now being incorporated into simulated practice learning – this will change quickly, but the driving fundamentals need to be embedded.”

Professor Sharon Weldon, Professor of Healthcare Simulation and Workforce Development, University of Greenwich

Professor Weldon confirmed that in the US, simulated training has reduced the length of training programmes for private nursing students by up to one-third on some cases – something that could be key for workforce pipeline acceleration globally. Simulated training is now being mandated across all nursing training in India, but Professor Weldon argued the need to work collaboratively with industry partners to ensure that these tools truly add value to a medical education.

The final session saw of the day saw NHS England’s National Chief Nursing Information Officer, Helen Balsdon, join National Chief AHP Information Officer, Prabha Vijayakumar, for an audience Q&A. While both were optimistic that innovation will lead to great strides in predictive analytics, prevention and reducing health inequalities, both cautioned that major progress remains difficult without the fundamental basics of data infrastructure and education in place.

“Good technology is one thing, but too much of implementation focuses on the technology and not on people, and then we wonder why implementation is so poor.”

Helen Balsdon, National Chief Nursing Information Officer, NHS England

“Nurses and midwives collect the most data,” said Balsdon, “but we don’t really harness it. We know we’ve got a shortage of nurses, and we need to work differently to address this – digital can help.”

Critical to this is bringing education and practice close together – in simple terms, to ensure that new entrants into the workforce are equipped with the confidence and minimum foundational understanding needed to use technology effectively.

The overriding note from the Digital Health Summit was optimism that AI and associated technologies offer an unprecedented opportunity to transform healthcare delivery and education for all. However, there was evident caution that the pace of technological change has outstripped the ethical, regulatory and legal frameworks that govern our use of them, and there is a clear need to address this lag. To truly harness the potential AI in healthcare, and digital transformation more broadly, collaboration between educators, regulators, and industry leaders must remain a priority—ensuring that technology enhances, rather than hinders, the delivery of safe, ethical, and equitable care.

The Council of Deans of Health have released a Performance Report following the conclusion of the 2025 Digital Summit, which can be viewed here.

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News, Workforce

Nominations open for Our Health Heroes Awards 2025, delivered by Skills for Health

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Nominations are now open for the Our Health Heroes Awards 2025, celebrating the wider healthcare workforce – from porters and cleaners to receptionists, gardeners and security guards – that supports NHS doctors and nurses on the frontline.

Supported by NHS England, NHS Employers, NHS Shared Business Services, NHS Race & Health Observatory and Integrated Care Journal, Our Health Heroes celebrates the wider healthcare workforce that supports NHS doctors and nurses on the frontline.

From porters and cleaners to receptionists, gardeners and security guards, these often unsung heroes make up roughly 40 per cent of the NHS’s million strong workforce.

Our Health Heroes Awards is a national celebration of their achievements and an opportunity to give thanks for the important role that they play in keeping the health service functioning.

Our Health Heroes Awards 2025 categories:

Individual awards

  • Clinical Support Worker of the Year
  • Operational Support Worker of the Year
  • Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Healthcare
  • Apprentice of the Year
  • Healthcare Volunteer of the Year

Team awards

  • Best Healthcare Workforce Collaboration
  • Dedication to a Lifelong Learning Culture
  • Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Champion
  • Digital Innovation

Nominations close at midday on Tuesday 4 March. An expert panel of judges will then decide the finalists in each category.

John Rogers, Chief Executive of Skills for Health, comments: “Our Health Heroes is an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the remarkable dedication of the wider NHS workforce.

“The awards shine a much-deserved spotlight on the unsung heroes – cleaners, porters, security staff, receptionists, medical secretaries and many more – who don’t often get the recognition that they deserve.

“The commitment, compassion and hard work displayed day in day out by the wider healthcare workforce is a credit to, and the backbone of, our NHS.”

Erika Bannerman, Managing Director of NHS Shared Business Services, comments: “The Our Health Heroes Awards are an expression of appreciation for those who make such a significant impact on patient care and the wider community.

“It is vital to acknowledge the contributions of individuals and teams who go above and support the delivery of outstanding care, and we are proud to be able to support the awards again this year.”

The winners of the awards will be announced at a glittering ceremony held at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London on 22 May 2025.

To make a nomination visit: www.skillsforhealth.org.uk/awards

 

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News, Workforce

Scaling the workforce to meet MSK demand is unrealistic. We need new solutions

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Digital pathways can transform access to care and ensure that those with the greatest need receive the care their conditions require, writes Finn Stevenson, Co-Founder and CEO of Flok Health.

According to recent projections, more than 7.2 million Brits will be living in chronic pain by 2040. With almost a million people already forced out of work due to musculoskeletal (MSK) issues, the welfare bill for back pain alone currently stands at £1.4 billion a year.

As our population ages and demand for treatment increases, one of the key challenges policymakers face is how to ensure patients can continue to access the care they need. With waiting lists for MSK treatment up 27 per cent from January 2023 to March 2024, we need to do more to deliver timely care to those who need it.

Hiring and training more physiotherapists can help make MSK treatment more accessible. It’s no secret that the workforce as it stands is chronically understaffed, and senior figures from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP), along with politicians, have underlined the need to boost training and recruitment in the service. Since coming to power in July, Labour has already announced that it will be publishing a new Long Term Workforce Plan in 2025, with leaders signalling their ambition to go beyond the previous government’s commitments on NHS training and recruitment.

But it’s naive to think that simply hiring more people will be enough to service soaring MSK demand. As it stands, staff are so overstretched that the NHS would need to increase the number of physiotherapy positions in England by at least 7 per cent every year, just to keep up with current demand. Reaching this target seems unfeasible, especially considering the fact that physiotherapist numbers in the NHS increased by just 4 per cent from 2022 to 2023, and by only 0.7 per cent the year before. In fact, data collated by the CSP reveals that the annual rise in staffing levels has consistently fallen short of the required 7 per cent, with the largest increase in NHS physiotherapists across the last seven years standing at just 5.2 per cent, in 2019-2020.

With this in mind, it’s clear that any drive to hire and train more colleagues must come alongside a commitment to find new, innovative ways to improve patients’ access to MSK care.

Digital pathways can transform access to care

In September 2024, there were almost 350,000 people on MSK waiting lists in England, with some being forced to wait months to begin treatment. Not only is this frustrating for patients, it can also exacerbate their health problems. Studies show that longer wait times can lead to worsening pain, increased risk of disability, and a hugely detrimental effect on mental health and quality of life. By integrating novel digital pathways, we can deliver care to these patients as soon as they seek help, reducing the risk of deterioration, and accelerating recovery.

Effective digital pathways are already out there. At Flok Health, for example, we’ve developed the UK’s first AI physiotherapist, delivering at-home MSK appointments in a CQC-approved digital clinic on behalf of the NHS. Our system allows patients to be triaged, assessed and treated through a smartphone app, without ever having to wait for a traditional appointment.

Data from the work we’ve done so far shows that 94 per cent of patients describe their experience using Flok’s automated pathway as being “better” or “the same as” the care they would expect to receive from a human physio, with 88 per cent reporting that their symptoms had improved as a result of AI treatment. Crucially, all of these patients were able to access same-day care, with 24/7 appointment availability.

AI-operated digital pathways can also offer major benefits to clinicians. Managing high volume pathways (like back pain) in an AI clinic frees up capacity in the traditional services, allowing staff to focus on the cases where face-to-face appointments matter most. This alleviates pressure on the workforce and ensures those with the greatest need receive the dedicated time and resources that their conditions require.

Bringing care to the community

Another way to improve patient access to treatment is to extend MSK services out into new community settings. There are examples up and down the country where local Trusts have found innovative ways to meet their patients closer to home.

Sussex MSK Partnership introduced community appointment days (CADs) in non-clinical settings in a bid to deliver more scalable care and improve outcomes. These CADs act as a one-stop shop where patients can discuss their health issues with staff, before accessing a range of clinical solutions and other community services. The results of this programme were hugely encouraging, with 50 per cent of attendees discharged immediately and just one third requiring follow-up appointments. On top of this, waiting times for MSK treatment saw a 5-week cut, while staff morale was boosted as a result of seeing the immediate impact of their work.

Time to embrace change

In most NHS settings today, all patients with MSK conditions are funnelled down the same pathway for face-to-face appointments, leading to enormous backlogs, overburdened staff, and compromised care. Training and recruiting more MSK staff is of course important, but insufficient. Solving these issues will mean offering patients a choice of different care pathways. By running novel services like Flok’s AI clinic and Trust-run CADs alongside traditional pathways, we can transform patient access and outcomes while freeing up capacity in the existing services. These newer forms of care delivery are also significantly more scalable and resource-efficient than traditional models, which in today’s NHS is more important than ever.

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Thought Leadership, Workforce

Operational management: The invisible backbone of NHS success

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Phil Bottle, Managing Director of NHS workforce planning specialists, SARD, discusses the unsung importance of operational management to the NHS, including how effective management can be the remedy for a system straining under the weight of misaligned capacity and demand.

Penny Dash’s recent comments cut straight to the heart of a critical issue within the NHS: the absence of robust operational management. Her observation that adding staff has not translated into the anticipated impact is a stark reminder that people alone, without the right systems and processes, cannot untangle inefficiencies or improve outcomes.

But what exactly is operational management in the NHS context? At its core, it’s about ensuring that the vast resources—people, time, and technology—are strategically aligned to deliver the best care for patients. It’s the art of transforming effort into efficiency, of turning plans into practical, measurable outcomes. It’s also about creating a culture of accountability, where teams understand their roles, adapt to challenges, and continuously seek improvement.

The cost of missing discipline

Operational management is not a glamorous term. It doesn’t grab headlines like breakthroughs in medical research or new funding announcements. Yet its absence is felt every day:

  • Empty outpatient clinics sitting next to overcrowded ones
  • Elective surgery lists under-utilised due to inflexible staffing
  • Temporary fixes taking precedence over sustainable solutions

These aren’t isolated problems; they’re symptoms of a system straining under the weight of misaligned capacity and demand. And they highlight the critical need for something often overlooked in healthcare: discipline.

“Dr Dash’s call for more ‘ops managers’ is a recognition that leadership matters.”

Operational discipline doesn’t mean rigid adherence to plans. It’s about creating the flexibility to respond dynamically to real-world challenges. It’s about having clear, standardised processes that still leave room for human ingenuity. It ensures the right people, in the right roles, supported by the right tools, are empowered to adapt and improve.

It is something clearly missing and sorely needed. Yet as unglamorous as this work may seem, these are the hard yards that need to be made for meaningful progress.

Unlocking potential through workforce planning

Workforce planning is one of the linchpins of effective operational management. Done well, it provides the foundation for aligning capacity with demand. It highlights inefficiencies and opportunities, offering clarity on how resources can best support service delivery.

However, traditional approaches to workforce planning often fall short. Data may be fragmented or inconsistent, job plans may fail to reflect actual service needs, and staff often feel excluded from decision-making. The result? A process that stalls and fails to deliver the needed impact.

What’s needed is a shift in focus:

  1. From fragmentation to integration
    Workforce data should tell a cohesive story, not present conflicting narratives. This requires shared frameworks, clear language, and accessible tools that translate data into actionable insights.
  2. From top-down to collaborative
    Operational management isn’t a one-person job. It’s a team effort that thrives on engagement at every level—from senior leaders to frontline staff. Collaboration fosters ownership, ensuring that changes are not only implemented but embraced.
  3. From short-term fixes to long-term sustainability
    Quick fixes may alleviate immediate pressures, but sustainable operational management looks ahead, anticipating future challenges and building resilience into systems and processes.

Leadership and accountability

Dr Dash’s call for more ‘ops managers’ is a recognition that leadership matters. But perhaps even more critical is focusing on the processes those leaders oversee. Operational management isn’t just about systems; it’s about the people who run them. Effective leaders don’t simply keep the cogs turning—they identify inefficiencies, question the status quo, and work collaboratively to drive meaningful change.

This may mean rethinking whether current processes are fit for purpose or innovating entirely new ways of working. For example, underutilised elective services or ‘dark hours’ in clinical spaces could be addressed by flexing traditional staffing models or introducing creative solutions such as cross-team task-sharing.

Equally, accountability plays a pivotal role. As Paul Corrigan pointed out, the NHS must create environments where success and failure are acknowledged and acted upon. However, accountability should not equate to punitive measures like league tables. Instead, it should foster collaboration between trusts, encouraging the sharing of best practices and lessons learned. Data is crucial here—not as a blunt instrument, but as a tool to illuminate areas of strength and opportunities for growth.

A moment of opportunity

The challenges are clear, but so too are the opportunities. Meeting today’s demand is as critical as planning for the future. Predictive analytics can help model upcoming needs and support proactive decision-making, but current demand models are just as vital. These tools allow teams to allocate resources efficiently, manage capacity in real time, and ensure patients receive timely care. Balancing immediate pressures with future-proofing is the operational challenge of our time—and one that must be tackled head-on.

Operational management is more than a behind-the-scenes function. When strengthened, it unlocks efficiency, empowers teams, and transforms patient care. The time to focus on “ops, ops, ops” isn’t years away; it’s now.

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News, Workforce

Will NHS England’s medical consultant job planning improvement guide work?

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Phil Bottle, Managing Director of NHS workforce planning specialists, SARD, explains how a limited view of workforce data is preventing trusts from workforce planning effectively, and explores whether NHS England’s newly published job planning improvement guide will help solve the problem.

Let me start with a story. Back in 2010, when I was head of learning and development in the NHS, I’d watch our director of workforce in a blind panic every month as they pulled together a board report. The report was simple: who works for the trust, including substantive, part-time, honorary contracts, and temporary staffing costs. So why the panic? Because nobody knew the answers.

Month after month, they scrambled to piece it together. This wasn’t a capability issue — our director of workforce was an excellent leader, and adept in their role. The problem was systemic; nobody had the data, and more concerningly, nobody knew where to look.

This problem existed long before I joined the NHS, and unfortunately, it still exists today. So, when I saw NHS England’s new improvement plan, my initial reaction was, hopefully, a step forward. Workforce planning has been a constant struggle. But the real question is: does this improvement guide truly help solve the underlying issues?

The positives: A step in the right direction

I’ve been around the workforce planning block for almost two decades. I’ve seen countless attempts to kick-start meaningful change. The most notable difference with this guide? It ties job planning directly to patient value, something often overlooked. Too often, job planning has been about capacity without understanding how that capacity impacts patient outcomes. Finally, a patient-centric focus — this is progress.

The plan also discusses some important areas that need addressing; consistency, engagement, utilisation of data-driven insights, leadership focus, capability, process structure, and demand and performance metrics. These are key areas for improvement, and I support these measures.

The familiar oversight

However, here’s the big ‘but’ — this guide, like many before it, focuses too much on procedure, and not enough on resistance, lack of perceived value and inconsistent linkages to demand. These are the familiar hurdles that those doing the job know all too well lead to poor engagement, and the real root causes of 20+ years of subpar workforce planning.

“The data isn’t being utilised effectively, and everyones knows it.”

It’s like telling someone, “just try harder.” No amount of process improvements will solve the underlying barriers unless we address the core issues. As it stands, it feels more like a numbers game. Those who truly understand workforce planning and its relationship with patient safety outcomes and workforce wellbeing know it’s far more complex.

Workforce planning is not as straightforward as finding a round peg for a round hole. It’s more akin to a 1,000-piece puzzle — having the right people, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time. Without this, a team’s, a department’s, or on a bigger scale, an organisation’s ability to deliver safe services and ensure staff wellbeing can resemble a shaky house of cards ready to tumble.

The root cause of poor job planning

A barrier to improving the consistency of job planning is cultural resistance. This is understandable to a certain degree, as job planning feels incredibly personal, even though it shouldn’t be. There’s a strong resistance to anything perceived as a threat to individual autonomy.

There is also an ambivalence towards the process due to the lack of perceived value. Why should anyone engage in this process if the data isn’t used for anything? The improvement guide talks about triangulating data with HR and Finance, but without demand modelling, it feels empty. The data isn’t being utilised effectively, and everyone knows it.

“Workforce planning… it’s failing because trusts don’t have the time and capacity to make it work.”

The inconsistent link to demand makes it feel like an afterthought. Demand should be at the core of job planning — ‘this is the demand on my service, and here’s the capacity to meet it’, not the other way around.

As a result, people don’t engage in job planning as it is seen as a process that doesn’t improve wellbeing, workloads, service objectives, or patient outcomes. The same applies to safe staffing, reducing backlogs, or achieving service goals.

The biggest issues: Time and capacity

Here’s the crux: workforce planning isn’t failing because of systems, leadership, or metrics. It’s failing because trusts don’t have the time and capacity to make it work. The process is complicated and labour-intensive, requiring significant hours from multiple people to be truly effective.

Until we address this fundamental issue — the lack of time and capacity — job planning, and therefore workforce planning, will continue to fall short.

Familiar solutions, same old problems

I’m not saying the challenges are easy to fix, but they are solvable. We need to think outside the box, beyond risk aversion, regulations, and procurement rules, and focus on what will add real, tangible value. Solutions that flatten the landscape by dealing with all the root problems holistically, rather than manage the hill. Solutions that tackle data analysis, engagement, expertise, tools, and training and provide tangible outcomes like better quality management information, not simply enabling more input methods.

This improvement guide offers procedural fixes, but it doesn’t tackle the deeper, systemic issues that have prevented job planning from being effective for so long. Real change will only happen when we address the root causes that are holding workforce planning back.

 

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News, Workforce

A People Powered NHS – A call to all health leaders

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Dr Allison E Smith, Director of Research & Insight at the Royal Voluntary Service discusses the key role that volunteers can play in delivering on core NHS goals.

The Prime Minister’s speech on 11th September 2024 pledged that this would be the ‘biggest reimagining of the NHS since its birth’. Hence, as we reflect on the plan for the future, we should challenge ourselves to think differently and work in ways which prioritise patient care and staff wellbeing. We should be bold and ambitious as the founders of NHS were in 1948.

In the original blueprint of the NHS, it was always intended to be a partnership between the state, the citizen and their communities. Public participation in the NHS e.g. via volunteering, informal carers and patient groups, has always played a vital role in the delivery of better health care. But in many ways, public involvement is a postcode lottery – a few areas do it really well, some do it (not well), and others have nothing. From the perspective of a volunteer-involving charity like Royal Voluntary Service – who have been supporting the NHS since before it was even founded – it is hard to get volunteering truly embedded in healthcare delivery. It still feels as if we are on the outside looking in or ‘pushing water uphill’. The purview of ‘integration’ appears largely limited to that of the NHS with social care.

With the public consultation on the 10-Year Health Plan, now is the time to rethink how the NHS – and wider healthcare system – works collaboratively with the public for the common good. System leaders need to stop putting up barriers to public participation and think ‘how can I build inclusive blended teams of staff and volunteers?’. Leaders should be embracing and nurturing the public interest and love for the NHS; 66 per cent of those signing up for the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders programme do so because they ‘want to support the NHS’.1

The business case – in terms of the impact of volunteers on the NHS and wider healthcare system – we feel has been made.2 The NHS and Care Volunteer Responders (NHSCVR) programme – first launched during the pandemic – has continuously proved its effectiveness, from driving system efficiencies to better patient care, workforce recruitment, and staff morale. For system leaders and frontline staff that embed NHSCVR within their local delivery there are big gains to be had.

For those unfamiliar with NHSCVR, this programme is a unique partnership between a charity (Royal Voluntary Service), a public service (NHSE) and a tech company (GoodSAM). It can match, via an App in real-time, requests for support from staff or patients with members of the public that can lend a hand. The programme is a key auxiliary service supporting the NHS and patients to expedite patient discharge, provide practical support to patients at home, deliver equipment for virtual wards, and provide support to ambulance crews waiting outside A&E. It is a free resource for local areas, is NHS approved, and can provide a critical safety net to mobilise volunteers at scale at times of high demand on the system.

In the past four years the programme has achieved significant scale; more than 2.6 million activities have been delivered in support of patients and the NHS, 221,000 individuals have been supported, and over 1 million members of the public responded. And while these numbers are indeed impressive, on the ground in local areas the programme delivers significant benefits for the system, staff, and patients – see table below.

Click to enlarge table

The data also finds that those who volunteer report higher wellbeing. In a 2021 study by the London School of Economics, those that volunteered experienced statistically significant higher wellbeing compared to those who did not volunteer, and this wellbeing impact lasted for at least 3 months.6

This article is a call to all NHS system leaders; the breadth of impact – from this programme – plus others (see Helpforce) surely warrant the immediate integration of volunteers in NHS ‘BAU’, and centre stage in our reimagining of the NHS over the next 10 years.

Royal Voluntary Service will be attending the Integrated Care Delivery Forum in London on the 5th November.

For more information or to connect with a member of our team, please reach out to your Regional Relationship Manager. Contact details are available at nhscarevolunteerresponders.org.

References

1 NHSCVR baseline survey, n=8481)

2 See King’s Fund 2018 Views from the Frontline, Helpforce, 2020, Volunteer Innovators Programme

3 Programme data & Volunteer Annual Survey March, n=6302

4 Staff Annual Survey October 2024, n=345

5 Client/Patient Survey June/July 2024, n=687

6 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2021/06/02/happy-to-help-how-a-uk-micro-volunteering-programme-increased-peoples-wellbeing/

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News, Thought Leadership, Workforce

How EDI can support NHS staff by creating a psychologically safe environment

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In the face of increasing pressures, equality, diversity and inclusion offers NHS managers a pathway to foster supportive, inclusive environments that allow healthcare workers to thrive and patients to receive better care, writes Dr Melissa Carr for ICJ.

An ageing population with complex needs. Long waiting lists and over-stretched services. Disengaged and demotivated staff. The recent Darzi report highlighted in grim detail the challenges facing the NHS.

With healthcare workers on the front line under huge pressure, it’s unsurprising to see high rates of burnout, stress and staff turnover.

With the Long Term Workforce Plan predicting a potential shortfall of between 260,000 and 360,000 NHS staff by 2036/37, retaining an engaged workforce is an organisational priority.

One crucial solution lies in the training and development of NHS managers who are equipped to lead teams within this challenging environment.

By using Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) practices, managers can create psychologically safe environments where team members can ask questions, raise concerns, admit mistakes and suggest improvements without fear of negative consequences.

How a culture of psychological safety can improve outcomes for staff and patients

Think back to a time when you worked in a team where finger-pointing and blame was the default. How would you have felt about reporting a mistake? Or suggesting a better way to do something?

Creating a safe workplace where colleagues can raise issues and share best practice is essential within any healthcare setting. As previous failings of care, and the inquiries that followed them show, toxic cultures can silence legitimate concerns.

EDI practices enhance and enable psychological safety in teams. The NHS equality, diversity and improvement plan highlights the importance of managers that can model inclusive leadership behaviours, guard against workplace bullying and discrimination, and create channels through which staff can speak up and highlight problems.

What research into psychological safety tells us about failure

More than 20 years of research has found that organisations with higher levels of psychological safety, often achieved through the implementation of EDI practices, consistently achieve better outcomes.

They don’t just protect staff from discrimination, stress and burnout. They can also have a transformative effect on how teams function.

Professor Amy Edmonson, who pioneered the idea of team psychological safety in the 1990s, discovered something interesting during her early research. Edmonson examined the relationship between error making and teamwork in hospitals but, rather than showing that more effective teams made fewer mistakes, the results found the opposite. Teams who reported better teamwork apparently experienced more errors.

A dive into the data explained why. It established that more effective teams reported more mistakes because they talked openly about them. It can feel challenging to hold your failures up to the light, but it’s the most effective way to troubleshoot systematic errors and drive positive change.

As a practical guide to improving patient safety culture published by the NHS in 2023 confirmed, team environments that allow for ‘intelligent failures’ which lead to reflection and improvement usually achieve the best patient safety outcomes. Psychological safety provides the environment in which this can work effectively.

As Amy Edmonson says: “Psychological safety is not about being nice. It’s about giving candid feedback, openly admitting mistakes, and learning from each other.”1

How integrated care systems can support safer workplaces

Within a culture of robust psychological safety and leaders trained in EDI processes, teams can openly challenge the status quo and flag fixable mistakes. Importantly, they are also empowered to suggest innovations that can improve the systems they work within.

One of the key functions of integrated care systems (ICSs) is to identify pockets of best practice across services and provide a platform where they can be widely shared. The repository of case studies on the NHS England website is a treasure trove of success stories – from social prescribing initiatives to fast-tracking cancer diagnoses by using AI.

ICS leaders must continue to create open channels for feedback. These help to foster team collaboration and trust, encouraging a no-blame culture, and shared aims and ambitions.

In a culture of collaboration rather than competition, this focus on knowledge-sharing encourages learning and improvement at all levels.

Using EDI practices to ensure psychological safety

Individual managers can make a big difference to their immediate teams but change on a larger scale can’t happen without clear organisational frameworks.

Equality, diversity and inclusion practices go hand in hand with psychologically safe workspaces. They provide the safety nets and support networks which allow people of all ages, ethnicities, sexualities and genders to share their lived experiences and raise concerns. They also work to erase the bullying and discrimination that makes workplaces fundamentally unsafe and silence the voices of staff.

In an organisation as multi-layered, complex and hierarchical as the NHS, inclusivity must be prized as highly as productivity. This means that everyone is given a platform to speak up, no matter their discipline, experience level or pay grade.

EDI frameworks aren’t a silver bullet for the complex issues facing the NHS. But they can tackle the significant problem of staff disengagement and enable a culture where diversity of thought is prized.

Empowering managers to lead teams

Psychologically safe workplace are as important to staff wellbeing as they are to patient safety. When employees feel valued, supported and – crucially – listened to, they experience lower levels of stress and burnout.

At Henley, we recognise that inspiring leaders can make a huge difference. That’s why we’ve partnered with NHS England to launch the first cohort for NHS colleagues pursuing careers in EDI.

Professionals at the beginning of their leadership journey, with no more than three years of experience within a management role, will learn the skills to create positive, inclusive and transparent working environments for their teams.

Dr Melissa Carr, Director of EDI at Henley’s World of Work Institute
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Pandemic reflections: What we’ve learned from professional South Asian women in the NHS

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Women from the BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) communities working in the NHS faced unique challenges and risks during the pandemic. Dr Saleema Kauser and Dr Ana-Paula Figueiredo interviewed women working in the NHS to hear the challenges they faced.

Ethnic minorities in the NHS encountered unique challenges during the pandemic, underscoring significant systemic issues within the NHS. Indeed, the pandemic served as a magnifying glass, revealing the vulnerabilities of healthcare systems across the world and the particular pressures faced by ethnic minorities within these systems.

For Asian women in the NHS, these pressures included not only the health risks from being on the front line. Their critical role in the healthcare response also positioned them at the intersection of race, gender, and professional risk.

This demanded focused research to dissect these overlapping vulnerabilities, and that is precisely what this project has been doing – researching the key insights and pivotal lessons that can be learned by interviewing professional South Asian women working in the NHS. Our research broke down into seven key areas of insight:

Preparedness and resilience

Many respondents noted that while the pandemic was challenging for everyone, it was particularly severe for ethnic minority women. A key issue highlighted was the inadequate distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE), which disproportionately affected these women, often leaving them on the front lines without adequate protection.

This lack of resources was compounded by delayed responses from management, who were slow to implement necessary safety measures. These delays not only heightened the risk of virus transmission but also highlighted a failure in crisis management that left staff feeling vulnerable and undervalued. Nearly all of our participants underlined the need for more proactive planning, robust health systems preparedness, resilience planning and the immediate provision of adequate resources like PPE.

Culture, leadership and behaviour

Many participants discussed a lack of cultural competence in healthcare provision and in managing ethnic minority staff. They called for more diversity in leadership roles within the NHS to provide insights into the lived experiences of different communities and to facilitate fair treatment and prevention strategies.

There is a clear need to integrate cultural competence training across all levels of the NHS. This training should target not only clinical staff but also management teams to ensure that decision-making reflects an understanding of the diverse cultural backgrounds of both patients and staff. The women also emphasised the need for regular assessments and feedback mechanisms to ensure that the needs and views of ethnic minority staff are being met.

Empowerment through awareness and advocacy

Women spoke about how enhancing advocacy could have led to significant improvements in addressing workplace inequalities and ensuring that all staff, particularly ethnic minorities, had the knowledge and tools to advocate for safer and more equitable working conditions.

Many participants emphasised how understanding their legal and organisational protections during the pandemic empowered them to advocate more effectively for themselves and their colleagues, and expressed a desire for more channels to raise their concerns. Some participants also felt there was a need to promote leadership roles for ethnic minorities specifically through leadership development programmes that target ethnic minority groups. This would help diversify the voices in NHS decision-making processes.

Transparent communication and focus on EDI

Clear, consistent, and transparent communication from healthcare leadership is critical during a crisis. The pandemic exposed a number of deficiencies in communication that often left women staff feeling confused and fearful. Many suggested that future strategies should focus on improving lines of communication, addressing staff concerns with empathy, and providing clear guidance on safety measures and operational changes, especially for those in high-risk roles.

Many participants expressed that information often did not reach them in a timely fashion or was not fully accessible, was only selectively shared or, in some cases, not shared at all in instances where white managers did not see BAME colleagues as full team members. They also felt excluded from decision-making processes, particularly those decisions that affected their work conditions directly during the pandemic.

Workforce support and sustainability

The dual burden of professional duties and domestic responsibilities was evident during the pandemic, especially for working mothers. It is crucial for healthcare systems to create and maintain support structures that help women manage this balance without compromising their health and well-being. Recognising and actively supporting the work-life balance during crises is essential in reducing burnout and maintaining high levels of care. Those in high-exposure areas such as COVID-19 wards faced intense pressure to manage work risks and family health.

Providing mental health support systems that are robust during and after crises is also essential. The women in our sample faced increased psychological impacts due to systemic biases and high-pressure roles during the pandemic.

Recognition and response to systemic inequities

Our data highlighted a deeply entrenched lack of recognition and systemic inequities towards South Asian women during the pandemic. The most significant was the systemic inequity around the distribution of PPE and critical resources. Participants often found themselves on the front lines without adequate protection, highlighting a stark neglect in the safeguarding of these workers compared to their white counterparts. Such disparities were not only a matter of resource allocation but also reflected deeper racial prejudices and a failure to recognise the equal worth and rights of ethnic minority workers.

Government and NHS coordination

Many participants discussed the need for a well-coordinated response between the government and NHS, which they felt was lacking. The lack of unity in their responses was a significant concern.

The general view was that in the long-term, healthcare policy reforms should focus on making the system fairer and more inclusive, especially in light of the inequalities exposed by the pandemic. This involves re-evaluating existing policies to ensure they truly serve and protect all healthcare workers, with extra attention given to those who are most at risk or disadvantaged.

Our data indicates that the disparities revealed during the pandemic demonstrated that the normal way of doing things wasn’t effective or fair for everyone, particularly minority women healthcare workers who often faced greater risks and fewer protections.

Our work highlighted the urgent need for systemic changes that promote equity, cultural competence, effective communication, and empowerment. By addressing these key areas, the NHS—and healthcare systems worldwide—can not only better prepare for future crises but also create a more just and supportive environment for all healthcare professionals.

The pandemic underlined the importance of the health and social care workforce, who faced extreme pressures. Ensuring the wellbeing, adequate staffing, and continuous professional development of healthcare workers is vital for sustaining health services during and beyond and future crisis.

Dr Ana-Paula Figueiredo, Researcher, Alliance Manchester Business School
Dr Saleema Kauser, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in Business Ethics and Strategy, Alliance Manchester Business School
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Staff urged to sign up for course co-produced with autistic people to improve mental health care

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November marks the deadline to sign up to the ‘Train the Trainer’ course, to support staff to provide workplace training to improve support for autistic people.

Staff working in mental health services in England are being urged to sign up for a ‘ground-breaking’ series of courses that provide training to improve care for autistic people as it reaches its final months.

The National Autism Trainer Programme (NATP) is delivered by Anna Freud, a mental health charity for children and young people, in partnership with AT-Autism, a non-profit UK autism training, clinical services and consultancy provider, for NHS England. Both organisations share a commitment to creating lasting positive change for autistic people, as well as their families and staff working with them.

The programme – which closes in November – supports staff to deliver training within their own workplaces to improve support of autistic people.

Staff working in mental health and other settings can sign up for NATP here.

Research indicates seven out of 10 autistic people develop a mental health condition such as anxiety, depression, or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). They are more likely to require mental health services than non-autistic people, but they don’t always get appropriate care. For example:

Since launching in 2023, more than 4,000 ​​professionals across England have been trained through NATP and more than 600 are registered for the remaining places so far.  ​​

The programme has been co-designed, co-produced and co-delivered with more than 110 autistic people to improve the knowledge, skills and confidence of professionals within mental health services in supporting autistic individuals. This includes challenging stereotypes about autism, building understanding of mental health conditions in autistic people and developing neurodiversity and trauma-informed and experience-sensitive​ ​approaches to their care.

Staff working in mental health and other settings can sign up for NATP here.

​​The course is open to eligible NHS England staff who currently work or may work with autistic people, including those without a diagnosis, in inpatient and community mental health services.8 Staff from residential special schools and colleges, and children and young people health and justice services, can also sign up.​

Full details on training dates and available settings are on Anna Freud’s website. The charity, which has been supporting children and young people for 70 years, is working to close the gap in children and young people’s mental health. NATP is helping to achieve this ambition by closing the gaps in the skills and knowledge needed to support autistic people of all ages within mental health settings.

Dr Georgia Pavlopoulou, NATP Strategic Co-Lead and Programme Director at Anna Freud and Associate Professor at University College London, said: “Without counting those not formally diagnosed, autistic people are massively overrepresented in mental health services, yet many don’t receive appropriate care. This ground-breaking programme was established to help spread a new understanding of autism across the country. We are training staff within mental health settings to better support and recognise autistic people through experience-sensitive and person-centred care.

“Seeing the changes that the thousands of staff trained through NATP so far have implemented in their own workplaces has been a joy. From recognising and making adjustments for sensory and communication differences to developing environments where autistic voices are listened to and respected, so many working cultures have become more neurodiversity-informed and inclusive.

“After we deliver the final set of NATP courses, ​​we will work closely with experts by experience, NHS England and partners to provide recommendations for a sustainable national model that promotes neurodiversity-informed practices within mental health services.”

Alexis Quinn is an autistic campaigner and author who, after attempting to seek mental health support following the birth of her daughter and death of her brother, was detained in 2012 under the Mental Health Act for almost four years. Alexis – who is also a content developer for NATP – said: “After major life changes, my mental health declined, and troubling autistic sensory seeking and cognitive needs arose. I couldn’t sleep, and I was more sensitive to touch, light and sounds. I also found I needed to move around all the time and became fixated on researching death processes. People around me became worried and I went to my GP for help. I thought I would be able to find somewhere to share my experiences and distress and have these supported.

“Instead, I faced countless barriers to accessing health care services. Some of these were environmental and some were caused by staff not understanding me. For example, I found the GP’s waiting area noisy and tried to move around to cope, but I was told I needed to sit down or leave. On one occasion, the police were called, and I was so overwhelmed, I had a meltdown. Not long after, I was sectioned and labelled mentally ill. I was given medications that caused scary and severe side effects, all of which compounded the distress I was experiencing.

“None of this needed to happen. If you understand autistic people, you can make reasonable adjustments such as providing a double appointment. You can also listen beyond the observation of autistic ‘symptoms’ by truly getting to know the person and their needs. That’s why NATP is so important. The course offers a neurodivergent-friendly approach to thinking about and supporting autistic people. Designed and delivered by the population it seeks to serve, it trains staff to recognise, understand and empathise with difference, and adapt care for neurodiverse people accordingly.”

Ellie Tidy, Child Wellbeing Practitioner at Islington Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) was trained through NATP. She said: “The training provided incredible insights into the experiences of autistic people, including helping us understand the importance of an experience-sensitive approach. We now have a box of sensory tools for face-to-face sessions ​that young people can access during therapeutic sessions​​ to feel more comfortable​, and we have developed a form where they can share sensory and social needs before appointments.

“We have also adapted some resources, including our adolescent anxiety interventions, to better reflect the potential cognitive styles of young people. To achieve this, we incorporated learnings from NATP, including on masking – a strategy used by some autistic people consciously or unconsciously to appear non-autistic – and alexithymia, when a person has difficulty experiencing, identifying, and expressing emotions. We are also expanding and improving our way of working with neurodivergent children and young people beyond the clinic, including advocating for better adaptations in other settings such as at home and in school.

“In the future, we aim to focus more on co-production. We’re currently working with autistic young people and their families in the service to gather feedback and find out which adaptations work well and what could be changed. Listening to the voices of ​autistic ​young people will help us to better support them.”

Staff working in mental health and other settings can sign up for NATP here.  

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Labour urged to support and protect NHS’ temporary healthcare workforce

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The UK’s temporary healthcare workforce needs championing and protecting, suggests the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), as it launches its people-first ‘Voice of the Worker’ campaign. 

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) is urging the government to champion the UK’s temporary healthcare workforce, with the launch of it’s people-first ‘Voice of the Worker’ campaign.

The campaign comes as the new government is pushing on with its Employment Rights Bill within its first 100 days in power.

The move has sparked robust debate regarding recruitment and employment, because highly regulated agency work already offers employment rights and in-work progression. There are fears that anticipated changes to employment rules could put the temporary worker market at risk.

Further, the new government’s launch of Skills England will also create more opportunities for temporary and contract workers to upskill as the Apprenticeship Levy is reformed. Although not confirmed, the government is expected to expand the Apprenticeship Levy into a ‘Growth and Skills Levy’, allowing companies to use 50 per cent of their levy contributions to fund training via routes other than apprenticeships.

Temporary healthcare work is key in helping the NHS deal with disparate and fluctuating demand, and with the right regulations in place, enable workers greater flexibility in work and control over their work-life balance.

Neil Carberry, REC Chief Executive, said: “Flexibility at work is something to feel optimistic about. It is working for millions of people. Individual choice and employers’ need for a versatile workforce can be brought together to deliver better careers and higher productivity. The government must ensure new rules support temps and that means having a real understanding of their lives.”

REC’s campaign aims to show how and why temping can work for many individuals by placing the real-life stories of temps, including those working in healthcare, at its heart. The campaign urges government, employers and unions to collaborate more closely to support the UK’s growing temporary workforce.

For the campaign, REC commissioned Whitestone Insight to interview 520 temp agency workers across different sectors – not just health – in Britain in June 2024, to hear their thoughts about agency work and why it matters to them. Polling found:

  • Almost eight in 10 temp agency workers (79 per cent) said their work provides an important need for flexibility.
  • More than two thirds of temp agency workers (68 per cent) said that their work provides a greater work-life balance.
  • More than half of temp agency workers (53 per cent) believed that this is the right kind of role for their current stage in life – an active choice.

REC says it hopes its ‘Voice of the Worker’ campaign will prompt far more discussion about reform of the public sector, with public services clearly struggling with demand. Temporary workers are critical in enabling the NHS to deliver services, helping to retain skilled people in the workforce and provide solutions to NHS trusts. But NHS policies for frameworks and banks have reduced the attraction of working for the NHS for medical staff – and forced trusts to use more and more emergency shifts. By reforming frameworks, their rates and the approach taken to permanent staffing, the new government could reduce costs and get better results for patients and the Treasury. But a proper partnership is needed to achieve this, the REC argues.

Neil Carberry added: “Government has repeatedly made the same mistakes in NHS staffing for almost a decade – trying to pay agency staff less year-on-year than they pay substantive staff. And pretending that Banks are cheaper to the exchequer. The result of this is that there are more emergency shifts as medics reject shifts, and spending overall has gone up. Moving on from demonising agency nurses and doctors and other clinicians – and the agencies that supply them – and working in partnership with the sector on a new approach to procurement will give the new government a unique opportunity to build a sustainable supply of short-term staff, at high quality and value for both patient and taxpayer.

“Good and lasting workforce changes that are effective for workers and employers, happen when employers and government work together to determine what works for everyone. Our case studies show the difference talented agency and contract staff are already making in our health service.”

This autumn, the REC will highlight video and written case studies of temporary workers, in which they explain the reasons for wanting flexibility and the benefits of temp working, across a variety of sectors.

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