Has coronavirus brought a new normal?

Has coronavirus brought a new normal?
People Management 23 April 2020.

• The Coronavirus outbreak has forced people to rethink how they approach home working, ethical business and ‘low status’ roles. This article asks whether these attitudes will stay after the crisis is over.

Make it FutureFit: Four ways to design better adult learning experiences

Make it FutureFit: Four ways to design better adult learning experiencesNESTA 24 March 2020

• A practical guide to design adult learning experiences that are fit for the future world of work and skills. Part of the Make it FutureFit programme which is designed to help to deliver better adult learning experiences which prepare adults for the immediate needs of a rapidly changing world of work.
• See also: Learning remotely: what to prioritise during COVID-19

What approaches to performance management and performance appraisal in the workplace are effective?

What approaches to performance management and performance appraisal in the workplace are effective for improving organisational outcomes or staff attitudes to the process?
PHE Knowledge & Library Services Evidence Briefing 25 November 2019

• A compilation of the evidence on different approaches to performance management (PM) and performance appraisal (PA) in the workplace, including looking at outcomes on business and employee productivity, and staff attitudes to the process - from January 1st 2014 to November 12th 2019.

How to recruit and support disabled staff in the NHS

How to recruit and support disabled staff in the NHS
NHS Employers 18 September 2019

• An interactive toolkit to help you attract, recruit, support and retain disabled staff into your organisation, and represent a diverse workforce that delivers high-quality patient care.

Pension tax rules - impact on NHS consultants and GPs

Pension tax rules - impact on NHS consultants and GPs
House of Commons Library Briefing 9 August 2019

• This short note focuses on the current debate about the impact of pension tax rules on some senior NHS staff.

Corporate services productivity toolkit

Corporate services productivity toolkit
NHS Improvement 5 June 2018 updated 28 June 2019

• A toolkit to help NHS providers implement their corporate services transformation and to enable the NHS to share best practice.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill - Briefing

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill
Nuffield Trust 2 June 2019

• The briefing looks both at the direct provisions of the Bill, and at the context of EU exit and the Immigration White Paper which will determine its impact in practice.

Embrace AI to reduce NHS accounting workloads

Embrace AI to reduce NHS accounting workloads [opinion]
Public Finance 24 May 2019

• A description of the current and potential use of AI in the NHS in saving man-hours across financial departments and focusing staff on more complex tasks, writes NHS Shared Business Services’ Stephen Sutcliffe.

Workforce Stress and the Supportive Organisation – A framework for improvement

Workforce Stress and the Supportive Organisation – A framework for improvement through reflection, curiosity and change
National Workforce Skills Development Unit at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust for Health Education England 4 April 2019

• A new framework aimed at helping health and social care employers improve the mental wellbeing of their employees. The framework encourages employers to take a closer look at the systems they currently have in place for managing staff wellbeing, challenges them to give greater consideration to the impact workforce stress has on staff and look at the role they can play in providing better support to staff who may need it.

Employment changes 1 April 2019

What comes into force this month
NHS Employers 1 April 2019

• A summary of some of the changes taking place from 1 April that affect employers and the NHS workforce.
• New pay progression system under NHS T&Cs
• Increase to clinical excellence awards investment ratio
• Pension contribution rates
• WDES roll-out
• National wage increases
• Statutory payment increases
• Tribunal payments for breach of employment obligations
• Compensation limit increases
• Pension taxation – lifetime allowance
• Apprentice levy transfer

Workforce Disability Equality Standard

NHS Workforce Disability Equality Standard Technical Guidance
NHS England 27 March 2019

• The WDES will help NHS organisations to review their performance against ten (10) Metrics and produce action plans to close the gaps in career and workplace experience between Disabled staff and non-disabled staff. This Technical Guidance contains the WDES Metrics, and provides a range of detailed information that will support those tasked with implementing the WDES.
• The Standard that will apply to all NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts from April 1 2019.
• The roles that CCGs are expected to play in rolling out, supporting the WDES and/or implementing the WDES as employing bodies will be agreed as part of the new IAF. Discussions about the 2019/20 IAF and the WDES will take place in 2019. 

Workforce Disability Equality Standard
NHS England February 2018

• The Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) is a set of metrics that will enable NHS organisations to compare the experiences of disabled and non-disabled staff. 
• The first WDES reports for NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts will be published in August 2019, based on data from the 2018/19 financial year.

Healthcare for EU and EFTA nationals living in the UK

Healthcare for EU and EFTA nationals living in the UK 
DHSC 19 March 2019

• Information on healthcare for European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) citizens living in the UK, if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
• The government has proposed to EU member states and EFTA states (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland) to maintain the existing healthcare arrangements in a no-deal scenario. This offer will apply until December 2020.

Supporting doctors who undertake a low volume of NHS General Practice clinical work

Supporting doctors who undertake a low volume of NHS General Practice clinical work
NHS England 7 March 2019

• This guidance document provides a framework for the management of doctors on the NHS England Medical Performers List who are undertaking a low volume (defined as fewer than 40 sessions per annum) of NHS General Practice (GP) clinical work.

NHS pension scheme: proposed changes to scheme regulations 2019

NHS pension scheme: proposed changes to scheme regulations 2019
DHSC 4 March 2019

• Consultation response: the National Health Service pension scheme, additional voluntary contributions and injury benefits (amendment) regulations 2019.
• The Department will produce informal full consolidations of the NHS Pension Scheme regulations incorporating the changes implemented by the final instrument. These will be available on the scheme administrator’s website after 1 April 2019: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/nhs-pension-scheme-regulations 

Consultation closed 28 January 2019

Proposed changes to NHS pension scheme regulations include:

• introducing a new contribution rate of 20.6% for employers from 1 April 2019
• renewing current member contribution rates so that the same rates continue to apply beyond 31 March 2019
• providing civil partners and same sex spouses with the same survivor pension rights as widows
• extending the current forfeiture of pension benefits rules

NHS Staff Survey 2018

NHS Staff Survey 2018

• The results of the NHS Staff Survey 2018 are now available. The various outputs that are created as a result of the survey's publication can be found below, or on the online results site, along with a description as to what each output includes.
• An overview of where each output is published is available here.

System working - new guide supports workforce sharing

System working - new guide supports workforce sharing
NHS Employers 15 February 2019

• As organisations and integrated care systems develop ways of collaborative, place-based patient care, this guidance for employers supports staff movement across NHS organisations as part of workforce sharing agreements. It includes:
• advice on developing workforce sharing agreements
• useful templates and practical issues to consider
• legal considerations to be taken into account by employers.

NHS Staff and Learners' Mental Wellbeing Report

NHS Staff and Learners' Mental Wellbeing Report
Health Education England February 2019

• As part of Health Education England’s health and care workforce strategy, the NHS Staff and Learners’ Mental Wellbeing Commission set out to discover and review evidence of good practices for the mental health and wellbeing of staff and learners in NHS organisations. The Commission has examined successful interventions from around the country, to identify what has worked well and what could be adopted widely. The final report makes a number of recommendations which will be considered as part of the Workforce Development Plan outlined in the Long Term Plan.
• The report makes 33 recommendations including:
• 1. Establish a board level NHS Workforce Wellbeing Guardian in every NHS organisation 
• 2. All NHS organisations appoint a Workplace Wellbeing Leader to work with and report to the Workforce Wellbeing Guardian.
• 5. Healthcare providers (such as GP practices, hospitals, and care home operators) on a local (STP or ICS) footprint should create a schools’ work experience bureau service.
• 23. A national charter should be developed, working with patient groups, clinical professionals and their representative bodies, and regulators of the professions that seeks to examine the way that reflections, complaints and comments from patients and the public are handled in the NHS.

EU Settlement Scheme

EU Settlement Scheme: Apply to stay in the UK after it leaves the EU
UK Government

• The EU Settlement Scheme, which allows people to apply to stay in the UK after it leaves the EU, is now open and accepting applications. There are a number of resources to help EU staff to make an application. 
• The scheme opens fully on 30 March 2019. For this phase of the roll-out the application remains in digital format only, but the alternative application routes are expected in due course.
• The Home Office has published an EU Settlement Scheme employer toolkit which equips employers with the right tools and information to support EU citizens and their families to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme.

Pay progression guidance

Pay Progression guidance for organisations, managers and staff
NHS Employers January 2019

• The 2018 framework agreement on the reform of Agenda for Change introduced provisions to move to a new pay system with faster progression to the top of pay bands through fewer pay step points. The new pay progression system, which comes into effect on 1 April 2019, will be underpinned by local appraisal policies that deliver the mandatory annual appraisal process. 

NHS Long Term Plan – Workforce development highlights

NHS Long Term Plan – Workforce development highlights
NHS England 7 January 2019

• The NHS Long Term Plan sets out a New Service Model for the NHS. Of note to HR is the move to integrated care systems (ICSs) across the whole country by April 2021, supported by primary care networks (PCNs), formed of GP practices typically covering 30-50,000 patients. 
• Under this Long Term Plan, digital-first primary care will become a new option for every patient giving patients the right to access telephone of online consultations from their own practice or, if they prefer, from one of the new digital GP providers. NHS England will review
• current out-of-area arrangements and adjust the GP payment formulae to ensure fair funding without inequitably favouring one type of GP provider over another, and also 
• GP regulation and terms and conditions to better support the return to practice and increased participation rates by GPs wanting to work in this way. (1.44)
• Chapter 4 describes a range of workforce development initiatives, notably a new Workforce Implementation Plan due to be published later in 2019 (4.10) supported by a national workforce group to endure the actions are delivered quickly. Themes of note in the implementation plan mentioned in the LTP include
• accelerate the shift from a dominance of highly specialised roles to a better balance with more generalist ones (4.24)
• increase the number of doctors and other healthcare professionals working in general practice (4.26)
• new national arrangements to support NHS organisations in recruiting overseas. (4.32) 
• Enabling staff to work smarter and make the most of their skills and expertise, in particular how digital technology can support free up staff time. (4.47)
• A new deal for staff to address harassment, bullying or abuse from other staff. (4.40)
• Set out workforce specific requirements for individual specialisms eg mental health, stroke. (Box p90)
• Work of the new national workforce group will include commissioning a review of NHS workforce data, to ensure that the information available on the electronic staff record, NHS workforce data collections and other sources such as the Model Hospital databases, provide both local and national bodies with real time access to a single source of trusted information to guide and support both day-to-day and strategic workforce decision making.
• The LTP stresses the importance of workforce development and career progression to increase staff retention (4.37) in particular multi- professional credentialing to enable clinicians to develop new capabilities (4.38) 
• Newly qualified doctors and nurses entering general practice will be offered a two-year fellowship offering a secure contract of employment alongside a portfolio role tailored, where possible, to the aims of the individual and the needs of the local primary care system. (4.27)