Planning your workforce
Integrated (population-based) workforce planning
The NHS workforce is a critical driver and key enabler for future service delivery. Integrated (population-based) workforce planning considers the whole healthcare system.
This spans from a comprehensive range of services within the hospital environments, to a comprehensive range of services in the local health economy. It also considers the role that patients/carers play in the care pathway.
Many things impact on workforce planning, for example technology changes, population trends, deprivation and chronic conditions, different generational expectations, changes in policy and local employment trend data. Workforce engagement and health & wellbeing of the workforce are also important factors in retaining staff.
The majority of the staff currently employed in NHS Wales will be our workforce of the future so it is important to understand what skills and competences they will require to deliver future planned services, to understand where these skills and competencies will come from and if they not readily available, make provision to develop these.
Workforce planning in NHS Wales is based on the 'Skills for Health' six step methodology and, in secondary care, is linked to the requirements of the integrated medium-term plans. In primary care, this approach has been adapted for use in clusters and to support the requirements of cluster integrated medium-term plans.
Therefore ensuring a workforce of:
