Senior healthcare professionals voting at a UK Skills for Health consultation event believe that high-level commitment and investment in skills transformation is critical to improving patient care.
The consultation – launched on 3 April by Phil Hope, Minister for the East Midlands and Minister for the Third Sector – centred around the development of a new Sector Skills Agreement (SSA) for Health covering the region. Delegates from healthcare organisations across the East Midlands voted electronically to identify which issues were of most importance to them in relation to workforce skills.
A massive 97% felt that obtaining high level commitment and investment in skills transformation was important or very important.
John Rogers, Chief Executive of Skills for Health said: “In terms of improving productivity and services to meet patient demand the importance of skills cannot be underestimated. Given the looming war for talent, recruitment will become increasingly difficult as a wide range of industries compete to attract the skills they need.
“As a result, the importance of ensuring that we are maximising the skills and competences within the existing healthcare workforce has never been greater. Workforce modelling and development functions play a key role in helping to achieve this.
“By adopting a competence-based approach, existing skills can be identified and individuals given the opportunity to fulfil their potential. If we can successfully tap into this hidden talent we can help to fill skills gaps by creating new roles and finding new ways of working.
“Whilst in many cases senior management is already recognising this, it needs to be reflected in the level of support and resources made available to those involved in workforce modelling and development.”
Having collated the wide range of existing Labour Market Intelligence available for the region and commissioned new research into the independent and voluntary sectors, Skills for Health also launched the first LMI report for the East Midlands at the consultation event. This was very timely, given that right at the top of the wish list – scoring 100% amongst delegates – was the need for accurate and easily accessible LMI. This report is available for free on the Skills for Health website.
