The workforce supply project at South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board

Our learning from the project

“As a result of the project, there were two of us within system roles. One key aspect we learnt was the efficiency our roles brought to our chief AHPs, through working closely with them we were able to understand what the key issues were for each organisation. For example, we identified two organisations that did not have chief AHPs in place, so when these were appointed, we worked closely with them to bring them up to speed with what was going on with the AHP workforce in South Yorkshire and supported them with what to prioritise.

“Another key piece of learning has been the impact of looking at the non-NHS data. We looked at the Multi-Professional Education and Training Investment Plan (METIP) data, which is the model HEE use to know how many AHP students’ universities should train to meet the demands on our health and care services. We learnt that local authority, social and primary care data was not considered. For us it is key that this data is included so we have enough staff to meet the growing demand our system faces. For example, our Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) need to know how many occupational therapists (OTs) to train so there are enough of them in our workforce structure to support the people of South Yorkshire.

“This project has highlighted the importance of retention within our early career AHP workforce. It has emphasised what we need to do at a system level in terms of raising awareness of the unique needs of this group within our organisations. NHS provider organisations understanding the attrition that early career AHPs are facing within the first two years of their roles and the best ways to recruit and retain employees, is vital. There also needs to be an awareness of what our students have faced whilst training at university during COVID, as well as knowledge and wider awareness of what our generation Z AHPs want from work.”

The difference across South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board following the project and how it helped the organisation

“At the start of the project we were situated within our workforce hub in our integrated care system (ICS). This really allowed us to build relationships and influence, as a professional group of AHPs. It allowed us to share system level understanding of the AHP workforce in South Yorkshire with key people within this hub. For example, we worked alongside the workforce planning lead and focused on making sure the workforce data we pulled was meaningful, accurate and useful.

“We have seen a big increase in apprenticeships across South Yorkshire, and my colleague Fiona Leahy has led on this workstream. Scoping work was completed at the start of the project to get an initial baseline AHP apprenticeship figure and we are already starting to see more AHP apprentices come through the in different organisations across the region. We know there are lots more in the pipeline as well which is very positive.

“Over the last six months we have established and developed some strong relationships across different levels in the ICS. For example, we have started to see positive changes with how our AHP leads work and an increased level of trust in the South Yorkshire AHP faculty, which is where we now sit.

“We are working multi-professionally alongside our nursing colleagues to support them in enhancing the current preceptorship offer in organisations so it can become more AHP focused. We are also acting as a bridge for our organisations, working closely with our local HEIs in supporting them to think about how preceptorship can be started whilst AHPs are still students, to help them become more ready to enter the workforce.”

The impact the project had at South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board

“Our roles have helped with the wider understanding across our ICS of how important the career pathway is for our entire AHP workforce. We have communicated out the importance of having a balanced and diverse AHP workforce. We are trying to support organisations to think about their AHP workforce planning to develop a system, where an individual can join the organisation as an apprentice; become a support worker, work their way up and become a registered AHP if they wish to.

“This project has signified the importance of our newly qualified AHP workforce, and we now have an AHP preceptorship network across South Yorkshire. Our key message is - “if we don’t support our newly qualified staff and retain them, this has a detrimental knock-on effect to our future senior workforce.

“We have supported our acute occupational therapy teams to think about how they can streamline their work and clearly define the role of an Occupational Therapist (OT) in acute medicine. Through enabling conversations to start, we have encouraged them to consider having more assistant practitioner roles within their teams. In line with wider work in the organisation, we collaborated with our OT teams to create an effective job description that could also be easily used by other services within the AHP professions.

“Through our links with the AHP faculty, we were asked if we could set up a task and finish group at a system level to assist with the recruitment of internationally educated AHPs across South Yorkshire. We have worked collectively with the organisations within our ICB and are working towards creating an agreed training competencies standard. This means all our internationally educated AHP colleagues will be trained and supported to the same level and can work competently across any of the organisations as they make South Yorkshire their home.

“We worked with several wider teams including business intelligence to develop further the AHP workforce data cleanse that was taking place in organisations. There has been a lot of shared learning and we have worked closely with regional colleagues, particularly Claire Arditto who suggested that we consider looking into AHP workforce dashboards. This led to us speaking with the current chief AHP and their workforce analyst at Harrogate Trust and organising workforce dashboard training for South Yorkshire organisations.

Personal impact of the project and the value of HEE's input

“For me personally and professionally this role was a big change, and I love working in a workforce focused role, with wider AHP groups I feel incredibly privileged and grateful to do this work and hope to make a positive impact for our workforce and communities in South Yorkshire. It has been a real pleasure to work on the project and the way HEE structured the project has been invaluable, through the webinars put on and the continuous support to keep momentum. This AHP workforce project took place on a national scale that we have never seen before and that is because of the HEE investment.”