The workforce supply project at Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Our learning from the project 

“One of the key things I have learnt from the national AHP workforce supply project is the importance of growing and upskilling our AHP support workers; ensuring they are working at the top of their scope and that they are provided with opportunities to progress. Within our trust we have a strong ethos of “growing your own” staff, which is reflective of our local community. When local residents find an employer they are happy with, they are very likely to stay with that employer within the area. Our AHP support workforce in particular are a very loyal and committed staff group, subsequently a real focus of the Barnsley AHP strategic workforce plan has been around developing opportunities for them, including having apprenticeships more widely available.

“Another key learning point has been understanding what preceptorship is. It has been embedded within nursing for a long time in Barnsley, but a lot of the AHP groups do not know what preceptorship is. Within our organisation we have a high turnover of our band 5 and 6 staff – who are our newly qualified/registered practitioners. However, evidence suggests that when this staff group get a good preceptorship offer, the likelihood of them remaining in the trust increases.

“Consequently, we have focused on improving our preceptorship programme and are currently in the middle of revamping this with a great network for AHP preceptorship champions. Our aim is to turn it into more of a multi-professional programme that is suitable for all clinical staff at the point of their induction into the trust.

“Finally, following feedback from AHP colleagues highlighting how busy they are and the lack of dedicated time they have to complete ongoing training and development with both staff and students, we explored the idea of establishing practice educators in AHP services. We have successfully secured two posts within our Occupational Therapy (OT) and Physiotherapy departments to lead on workforce development and student support to improve retention and recruitment within these teams.”

The difference at Barnsley hospital following the project and how it helps the organisation

“Prior to the project starting our AHP services were siloed, working in their individual areas with nobody providing any kind of overarching leadership or collective sharing around development opportunities. It was clear there was a need to bring our AHP groups together within the AHP strategic workforce plan.

“Subsequently, we created a community of practice. We meet bimonthly to share development information for AHPs and to ensure that we are collectively undertaking the same development work across the trust and have equal access to opportunities. This has been well received by staff because they now feel they have got a central point of communication. The community of practice has also been important for me to ensure that the AHP strategic workforce plan resonates with the staff across the trust and reflects their thoughts and opinions.

“AHPs account for almost 10% of the Barnsley NHS Foundation Trust workforce, and prior to the project, this was not recognised within our organisation. However, through regular meetings around the AHP strategic workforce plan, as well as proactively using social media we have now been able to raise the profile of AHPs as a collective professional group. We have also tried to engage our support workforce to use their voice in the trust and interact with our South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (SYICB) as well as develop our own AHP Support Worker Forum.”

The impact the project has in LPFT and the value of HEE’s input

“A big part of the project has been looking at our staff base and bandings that we have within each AHP group and quantifying these through a data cleanse of our electronic staff records (ESR). We aligned this with our local data and e-product data, which is held within HEE, to check we had an accurate picture of our staff structure and skill mix. It became apparent that some of our AHP teams have an unequal distribution of registered and unregistered staff.

Talking to our registered workforce highlighted that they could be delegating more work to our support workers. Subsequently, this provided strong evidence for us needing to review the skill mix of our workforce and has formed a central part of the strategic workforce plan. We have started using the Calderdale Framework, which is an evidence-based workforce transformation tool. It focuses on the notion of skill sharing and delegation across all bandings, so staff can work at the top of their scope and it highlights any training and development requirements.

“To enhance this further, we are also developing more band 4 assistant practitioner posts for the lower risk non-complex patients within our OT and physiotherapy departments. We are looking to develop some hybrid roles where one professional sees the patient and has all the skills to provide that holistic assessment and complete interventions. This way of working is more efficient and will hopefully reduce length of stay and facilitate patient flow through the hospital.

“There is a real aspiration to create advanced practice roles across our radiography and orthoptic teams who will then be able to provide clinical support where we have vacancies within the medical workforce. If we can upskill our radiographers and orthoptists to this advanced level of practice, they can lead glaucoma clinics and low vision clinics, as well as doing more of the radiography diagnostics and reporting which will help to reduce waiting times across ophthalmology and radiology pathways.

“I have worked hard to build relationships with our workforce data, finance, and business intelligence teams. We work collectively and they have all been forthcoming and supportive. I have also been able to work collaboratively with our ICB and we have been able to streamline our work so we are working in alignment across south Yorkshire.

“HEE’s support has been invaluable, it has been ‘long arm support’ – they were there if you needed them and you knew you would receive support if you reached out. I was linked with Suhailah from the start who was incredibly encouraging. The various monthly webinars put on have been a great way to check you are on track with the project and they have also been a great source of signposting to key resources and helpful information.

“Personally, I have thoroughly enjoyed working on the project and it has been a positive experience. I have loved the change and the challenge. Having the opportunity to influence change and make a difference in the role has also made me feel incredibly valued as a staff member within the trust. The team I have been based with have been incredibly supportive and enabled me to learn and develop. The role has increased my confidence and experience and I have had the opportunity to expand my networks and communicate with teams that I would not have necessarily come into contact with prior to the project.”