The nursing workforce

The Health Select Committee has published its nursing workforce inquiry.  This report highlights the importance of improving staff wellbeing and development to allow the NHS to retain the valuable experience and skills of its current nursing workforce.

Newborn blood spot screening: code of practice for residual spots

Guidance from Public Health England which Provides the code of practice for the retention and storage of residual spots after newborn blood spot testing.

Briefing on rotational posts published

NHS Employers has published a new briefing document exploring how rotational posts can be an effective response to the challenges faced by employers in attracting and retaining staff.

It looks at the need to be innovative with workforce supply strategies to attract, develop and retain staff, and how this can be done through rotating substantive staff into different departments, organisations, or across a range of organisations.

Reward to improve staff retention

A case study from NHS Employers shows how Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust used reward strategically to improve staff retention and reduce spending on temporary and agency staff.

Retaining your clinical staff

This improvement resource outlines key steps to improving retention of clinical staff. The advice is taken from interviews with trust HR directors, directors of nursing and medical directors.

NHS Improvement publishes retention guide

To support employer organisations with retaining staff, NHS Improvement has published Retaining your staff: a practical guide.

Supporting staff retention with reward

In this NHS Employers' case study, Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust shares how they used their reward offer to improve staff retention, reduce agency and temporary staff spend and re-engaged the workforce.

Retention: Showcasing Best Practice, Celebrating success and Looking to the Future

On 5 December 2017, NHS Employers hosted an event, Retention: Showcasing Best Practice, Celebrating success and Looking to the Future.

As part of the event, trusts presented on their key successes in the rollout of retention strategies to improve staff leaver and turnover rates. These included:

• Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
• Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
• Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Disposable expertise: how nurses and teachers get taken for granted

Fiona Johnson looks at the similarities between the two professions, argues we underestimate their expertise at our peril, and suggests why they’re not appreciated enough.

The Nuffield Trust is preoccupied with the workforce challenges in the NHS, all of which, it argue, are at least as serious as the financial problems besetting the NHS.   Routes into nursing are also proliferating with the advent of the nursing associate role, nurse apprenticeships and Nurse First. It might be salutary to learn some lessons from teacher training as these new options are rolled out.

Action is clearly needed as nurse vacancy rates are at record levels, creating a vicious cycle of pressure, burnout and more pressure for remaining staff. Yet the NHS appears to have no coherent retention strategy for its nursing workforce.

Rising pressure: the NHS workforce challenge

A new Health Foundation report highlighting that national policy and planning for the NHS workforce in England is not fit for purpose. The report also finds high staff turnover and instability across the NHS, and a drop in the number of trainee nurses.

Falling number of nurses in the NHS paints a worrying picture

Pressures on nursing staff and the potential impact on patients are again in the news just as Jeremy Hunt promises more nursing training places – for good reason as the latest NHS workforce statistics show.

The number of nurses employed in the NHS follows a stable seasonal pattern. Numbers rise in the autumn as newly qualified staff complete their training and then decline again until the following summer as some staff resign or retire, before beginning the cycle once more as another year’s newly qualified staff arrive.

Sustainable staffing in our emergency departments

NHS Improvement has developed a plan with the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), NHS England and Health Education England to grow the workforce, reduce attrition in medical training and ensure emergency departments are attractive places to work.

Improving staff retention: a guide for employers

This guide from NHS Employers reflects and builds upon the work that NHS Employers has been doing since late 2016 with 92 NHS trusts, to identify and implement actions that can reduce the rate of leavers in NHS organisations. It also includes a number of case studies that illustrate the breadth of work that is being done across the NHS to improve staff retention.

Attract, retain and motivate your staff with Reward

NHS Employers has developed a quick guide to lead you through the three phases of the reward strategy toolkit to help you to develop an effective approach to reward for your organisation.

Sir John Timpson CBE talks on recruitment, retention and reward

Find out what they do at Timpson to recruit, retain and reward their staff. In this podcast John Timpson talks about the importance of giving autonomy to the frontline, and the value of trust in the workplace. He also shares the lessons he has learned and how they might be relevant to the NHS context.

New case study on improving new starter turnover

NHS Employers has published a new case study looking at how East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust teams has worked to improve experience for staff in their first year of employment.

The team improved the overall on-boarding experience including starting induction to the role before day one and introducing an online portal for new starters. This work has resulted in an improvement in new starter turnover of nearly 20 per cent.

Using data to improve nurse turnover

New case study from NHS Employers:

Working collaboratively, staff from Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust used data to reduce nurse turnover by 2 per cent and the costs relating to recruitment of temporary and agency staff.

Securing a sustainable NHS workforce for the future

NHS Improvement has launched a major new programme to improve staff retention in trusts across England and bring down the leaver rates in the NHS by 2020.

Nurses and all clinical staff are the backbone of the NHS and this retention programme will highlight why there's been an increase in staff choosing to leave and provide support to trusts so they can hold on to this expertise and experience.

Look after current staff to secure the future NHS workforce

‘Retention retention retention’ was the mantra of Ian Cumming on day two of Confed17, with a call to secure a sustainable NHS workforce by looking after the staff we already have.

Showing figures on retention and supply, he highlighted the paradox of a large workforce shortfall, despite more people than ever wanting to take up nursing and medicine.

Between 2016 and 2018, 87,000 nurses will leave, not retire from, the NHS. And though 84,000 will come back, only 64,000 newly qualified nurses will start in that period.
More flexibility needed

Insufficient flexibility in working patterns was the main reason for nurses leaving the NHS, according to HEE statistics. Addressing this root cause and looking after the staff we already have is essential, he said.

Mr Cumming suggested short, medium and long-term solutions to tackle the problem, including increased flexibility, new roles such as physician associates, and increased use of volunteers

Election briefing: A sustainable workforce

This is the third in a series of Health Foundation briefings ahead of the June 2017 general election. It focuses on the fundamental challenges facing the NHS and social care workforce in England, pointing to a combination of issues around recruitment, retention and morale.