NHS – Page 2 – Lancashire & South Cumbria Library Blog

RCP view on the NHS workforce

Short- and medium-term solutions

Source: The King’s Fund

This policy paper outlines how staffing shortages are the biggest barrier to meeting demand for care and delivering health care sustainably in the long term. It describes how a long-term plan for increasing staffing numbers, including expanding medical school places, is needed to put the NHS workforce back on a sustainable footing, restore timely access to care and protect patient safety. But given the urgency of the situation, the RCP has set out a range of short- and medium-term solutions that will make a difference now, from affordable childcare and flexible working to overseas recruitment and a new ‘retire and return’ deal for consultants.

Allied Health Professions Day

Friday 14 October 2022

AHPs are the third largest healthcare workforce, with significant opportunities to support delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan. AHPs’ Day is an annual opportunity for AHPs to come together and celebrate being part of the AHP family, and the day gives an opportunity to showcase to others the impact they make to the delivery of high quality care. The collaborations in services, organisations, trusts, regions and nationally enable:

Improved awareness of the role of the fourteen allied health professions
Showcasing the achievements of local services and their impact on patient care and population health
Integrated working with other services and organisations.

Long Covid

A framework for nursing, midwifery, and care staff

This framework supports nurses, midwives and care staff in ensuring care remains at a high standard, as well as demonstrating the contribution to the long Covid response. It aims to give the opportunity to embrace collective leadership in supporting people and communities served and showcase good practice as it emerges across England.

Nursing and Midwifery Council

Internationally trained professionals joining the NMC register: 1 April 2021–31 March 2022

This analysis reveals that the profile of international professionals registered in 2021–2022 is very different from UK joiners and the register they joined. They’re more likely to be men and they’re much more likely to be ethnically diverse. The NMC is calling on health and care employers to fully support internationally trained professionals into UK practice – and join with UK-trained nurses and midwives to create the most inclusive environment possible.

To find out more click here.

British Geriatric Society

The geriatric medicine workforce 2022

Source: The King’s Fund

This report examines data collected by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) on the consultant and Higher Specialty Trainee geriatric medicine workforce. This data, which was collected between 2019 and 2021 as part of the RCP’s annual workforce census, demonstrates the staffing challenges facing older people’s health care. Despite the growth in medical student places, there are not enough specialist health care professionals being trained and retained to meet the needs of the population as it ages.

For more information click here.

British Geriatrics Society

Implementing ‘Virtual Wards’ for older people with frailty

This report explores how ‘virtual wards’ are funded and implemented as well as the potential benefits, limitations, and scientific evidence to be taken into consideration when providing a safe, effective, and patient-centred alternative to hospital inpatient care for older people.

Library Bulletin

Serious Mental Illness

With thanks to our colleagues at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust, the latest edition of the Serious Mental Illness bulletin is now available to view.

NCBI-Serious-Mental-Illness-bulletin-August-2022 Download

You may need an Open Athens account to read some of the literature. For support setting up an account or help accessing any of the documents please contact; academic.library@lscft.nhs.uk

Disabled people and health care services

Getting our voices heard

Disabled people face poorer experiences of – and worse access to – health and care services than people who aren’t disabled and these health inequalities have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. In this context, it’s vitally important to include disabled people in planning, designing and developing health and care services. This King’s Fund long read, with Disability Rights UK sets out what we found out about how disabled people are currently involved in health and care service design, and what good might look like.

Key messages include:

60 per cent of those who died from Covid-19 in the first year of the pandemic were disabled. The health inequalities disabled people already faced were made worse by the pandemic and a decade of austerity. In this context, it’s vitally important to include disabled people in designing and planning health and care system responses.
Health and care services need to understand the broad diversity of disabled people’s identities and experiences, and adopt a social model approach to disability, understanding that people are disabled by barriers in society, rather than by impairments or health conditions.
Health and care professionals need to value disabled people’s expertise through properly recognising the value of lived experience and ensure disabled people’s voices are central to any plans right from the start.
Disabled health and care staff are potential partners in this work, with their perspectives of both using and delivering services.
Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) can strengthen their impact by working with other local DPOs and user-led organisations, understanding which parts of health and care systems they can best influence, and supporting health and care organisations to meaningfully engage with disabled people.
Both health and care organisations and DPOs need to improve their understanding of how people’s multiple identities shape their experiences, and embrace diversity of voices, opinions and challenges as an opportunity to think differently.
Ensuring disabled people’s voices are heard requires constant attention. While there are some examples of good practice, we heard many stories we heard where involvement wasn’t happening or felt tokenistic.

(The King’s Fund)