‘Collaboration is the only game in town’

I’ve now been HEE’s Chief Executive for a year. The time has flown and so much has happened in this period! 

Not only have we achieved on key mandate deliverables - recruiting a record number of GP trainees; helping to deliver a record 32% rise in student nurse applications; adding another 11,800 nursing, midwifery, and allied health professional clinical training placements; and investing £5.6m in a new blended nursing degree, to name just a few. I firmly believe that to succeed in delivering a sustainable healthcare workforce all parts of that complex machinery need to cooperate and collaborate.

Development of constructive and productive long-term relationships are based on mutual trust and benefits. Listening to and understanding the views and feedback from our stakeholders can help shape and improve the overall service and experience the NHS offers to our people and patients.

I’m proud that throughout the last year we’ve tightened and strengthened our relationships with stakeholders such as our fellow Arm’s Length Bodies, professions, health, and social care, public and private, regulators and Devolved Administrations.

At HEE, we’ve spent a lot of time listening to our stakeholders nationally and regionally to ensure we understand what matters most to them, and their experience and views of HEE; to know how we are delivering within the system, the impact we have, and our ability to continue to lead complex work for the health and care system.

In our 2019 and 2020 stakeholder surveys, it was really encouraging to see that most stakeholders felt their relationship with HEE was collaborative, open and trusting and that their relationships had strengthened, along with their perception of the organisation, as a result of: 1) changes in the senior leadership team and a new more proactive approach; 2) higher levels of engagement and relationships built through the development of the People Plan; and/or 3) joint working in response to COVID-19. We’re keen to share with you more details about these surveys, what you told us and how we’ve responded to your feedback. Please take a look at our You Said, We Did’ update.

HEE has placed an increasing and deliberate emphasis on improving our understanding of our impact, how we are perceived, and how people would like to interact with us – both internally and externally. Our 2021 stakeholder survey will be undertaken shortly and we will continue to keep you updated on our plans and progress.

Together we are stronger – the NHS is vast and complex however by working together we can achieve so much more than the sum of our parts. A perfect example of this is the challenge we are facing with training and service recovery post COVID. By unifying these challenges, we can together make much more progress for our learners and our patients.

I firmly believe that collaboration is the only game in town.

Best Wishes

Navina

Dr Navina Evans

Chief Executive 

Health Education England