Pillar 4: An integrated health and care system

Our joint health and care workforce is one of our biggest Place assets. Pre COVID-19, across Cheshire West, and indeed the whole country, workforce shortages were the biggest challenge facing health and care services. This posed a threat to the delivery and quality of care as these shortages took a significant toll on the health and wellbeing of staff.

COVID-19 both highlighted and exacerbated demands on the local health and care workforce. COVID-19 changed the face of NHS and social care, generating rapid transformation at a time of immense pressure and personal and professional challenge. In responding to the pandemic, we saw the commitment, professionalism and compassion of our health and care staff shine through. It is important to recognise their sacrifices and achievements and acknowledge the emotional toll the pandemic continues to have on them.

The Cheshire and Merseyside Joint Forward Plan highlights the ICB’s commitment to supporting health and care staff who frequently go above and beyond their designated roles. A new ‘Train, Retain, Reform’ strategy will be implemented to develop new roles and expand apprenticeship programmes in order to grow the workforce alongside health and wellbeing initiatives for current staff.

In Cheshire West we will build on the lessons learned during the pandemic, helping our health and care workforce stay well, taking steps to support staff and improve employment practices and culture through the Joint Peoples Workstream and implementation of our Joint Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care.

We will:

• support the transition of our health and care workforce to become a wellbeing workforce, enhancing their role in prevention
• invest in the workforce, with more people, new ways of working and by strengthening the compassionate and inclusive culture needed to deliver outstanding care
• align our health and care workforce strategies to support our approach to joined up care for individuals
• address any local inequities in recruitment, pay and career progression by gender, ethnicity, and occupation
• grow and develop our local health and care workforce, regardless of which organisation they work for
• attract, recruit, and retain people within west Cheshire – keeping our Cheshire workforce in Cheshire
• offer focused training and recruitment to domiciliary care careers to address workforce shortages
• maximise the potential of staff through better use of existing skills, enhancing those skills, and redesigning roles, including use of the Apprentice Levy
• develop staff so that they are equipped with the necessary digital skills to make the most of new technologies
• offer development opportunities for staff to progress in their career
• strengthen partnership working with the University of Chester to increase local training and employment opportunities to address healthcare workforce shortages, build healthcare resilience and maintain quality, especially in rural areas. This includes medical, nursing and health visiting places and work placements.