Presentation – Representatives of the Better Health Programme will give a presentation to the Joint Committee advising members of the latest information regarding workforce considerations and service modelling.
Minutes:
Representatives of the Better Health Programme gave a presentation which provided an update on the workforce considerations and service modelling which had been undertaken by the Better Health Programme Board.
Members were advised that in England there was a shortfall in consultant posts to match demand in respect of the following service specialisms:
· Acute medicine is 552 increasing to 873 by 2020
· A&E is 224 increasing to 371 by 2020
· Anaesthetics is 225 increasing to 530 by 2020
· Cancer is 353 increasing to 629 by 2020
To mitigate against these shortfalls, there would be an investment in development of training places for:
· nursing
· advanced practitioners
· community and primary care workforce
· scientific training programmes
Key issues identified within the presentation included:-
· Acute hospital services could deliver better quality of care by direct access to Consultant specialist services for everyone 7 days a week, and where appropriate, 24 hours a day.
· Some highly specialist services did not see enough patients to maintain and develop care which met agreed clinical standards, e.g. acute surgery and neonatal intensive care.
· Some services did not have enough consultants to ensure rotas in hours and on call to meet clinical standards, e.g. A&E.
· People experienced variation in quality of care depending on where and when they were treated.
The Representatives from the Better Health Programme summarised by advising that:
· The workforce are highly committed and highly professional
· Transformation of the workforce was a continual journey of improvement to deliver better care to patients
· Increasingly, there were pressures on training and specialist workforce both nationally and in the North East
· We are responding positively but we need wider system transformation to retain and attract the best in a highly competitive workforce.
Three short videos were shown to the Joint Committee.
The Chair asked what impact Brexit would have on the services. Members were advised that it took 7 years to train a consultant. It was difficult to know what the impact would be but there were many employees currently from overseas and some had already decided to return to their own countries as feared the impacts of Brexit. 30% of the NHS staffing was made up from overseas trainees and doctors. These could leave a huge shortfall in the future.
Cllr L Tostevin asked if there was a plan for upskilling in local hospitals. Members were advised that there was a plan in place. There were a lot of nurse practitioners in the South Tees area. Specialist skills were being used to the greatest ability.
Cllr M Ovens asked if there were any scientific training programmes in place. Members were advised that the NHS had invested heavily across the region in Radiologists and Radiographers. There were PHD scientists across the board. There was an issue with recruitment and retention of staff in the South Tees Area. A lot of staff were trained and decided to go to the North Tees area.
The Chair thanked the Representatives from the Better Health Programme for their presentation and attending the meeting.
At the conclusion of the discussions it was:-
AGREED that the information in the report be noted.