How to nurture ‘integrated workforce thinking’

‘Integrated workforce thinking’ brings leaders together across systems – how can it be fostered across the NHS?

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on NHS Employers

Integrated workforce thinking occurs when leaders across systems work together to consider population health, health and care needs and system strategy, so they can plan a workforce that delivers population health and person-centred care within their communities. 

However, integrated workforce thinking is more than just about bringing together what different organisations are already doing; it recognises the complexity of the health and social care system, the challenges, and the need to build on strengths so that new and creative solutions can be formulated through joint working.  

Here are some suggestions to encourage integrated workforce thinking in your practice:

Governance 

It is important that the people responsible for integration set out governance arrangements to ensure collaborative working across the system. This includes:

• Agreeing and modelling the behaviours of integrated thinking and working.
• Setting and agreeing a transparent framework and system governance that incorporates risk share and clear ownership.
• Thinking about how to incorporate checks and challenges to ensure agility in the process.
• Not over-complicating decision-making. Agree how you will prioritise as a team by concentrating on something that is important to everybody – for example, getting people home.
• Pooling funding to bring in external expertise, to maximise resources and achieve the desired outcomes.
• Identifying a cross-sector project team to lead development of the thinking and planning.
• Considering how digital solutions – such as virtual wards and digital care plans – can support the development and implementation of the workforce plan.

Changing culture

Culture is an integral part of building a more integrated workforce. Historically, organisations within systems have been working in silos, so it is important that culture change is addressed from the offset when beginning to integrate workforce thinking. To do this, you could:

• Focus on culture change in systems by listening and engaging with leaders from each organisation to agree how integration can be achieved at a system level.
• Understand systems’ ICS strategy and population health data to understand how this can impact ways of working.
• Take time to build relationships and understand who is who, what each other’s contributions are, and how organisations can work together to deliver better quality care and support population health.
• Help build relationships by encouraging proactive contact between colleagues across the system who have similar roles, rather than waiting for formal meetings to begin.

Communication 

Communication is key to developing a shared understanding of what an integrated workforce looks like. We are all new to this way of working so it is important that learning is shared continuously. This could look like:

• Communicating across the system at every stage of the process, internally and externally. 
• Celebrating success, and share learning from what has worked locally, within the system and nationally.

Data 

Data is crucial to integrating workforce thinking in order to provide a shared understanding of the challenges across systems. To do this successfully, you should:

• Ensure a clear understanding of the current and future health, care and support needs of your local population through projecting older people population information or projecting adult needs and service information.
• Identify where local workforce demographics can be obtained and analysed, along with any other complementary data sources, such as the Office of National Statistics, ESR system, NHS Digital, Workforce Disability Equality Standard, Workforce Race Equality Standard, NHS Staff Survey and the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set.
• Consider having a data lead to collect information and share across all partners within the system.
• Demonstrate how data analysis has informed any decisions, and particularly potential biases of the data sets, to ensure any data gaps are made clear – for example, make sure geographical or ethnic indicators are noted and considered during decision-making.