Getting it right for our health and care workforce
The people who deliver our services are at the heart of health and care. That includes 250,000 people in paid roles and over 750,000 volunteers and unwaged carers.
Addressing our workforce challenges is the biggest barrier to improving the way we provide health and care in our communities. It is vital that we get it right for our workforce so we can provide the best possible care for the people of Greater Manchester.
Our new People and Culture Strategy for 2022-25 will set out Greater Manchester’s ambitions, aims and priorities for our health and care workforce. It will look at areas such as:
- How we attract more people to work in health and care – and help them develop
- How our people get better at working together to help integrate our services
- How we support our organisations to become better employers
- How we address the causes of staff sickness and help keep our workforce well
- How we make sure our workforce is representative of the people we serve – and that they are treated fairly
If you want to find out more or get involved, email gm.workforce@nhs.net.
In the meantime, there are lots of helpful resources to support our health and care workforce.
Workforce Development Funding – End of Year Report
The Workforce Development Funding End of Year Report (2023 2024) summarises the work to deliver workforce transformation, as funded via NHS England.
This work is delivered across the health and care system in Greater Manchester through programmes supported by the People and Culture Function team, other teams within NHS Greater Manchester and partners across the system.
There are a broad range of projects that have been identified as addressing priorities within the People and Culture strategy, and they vary by investment, timescales, and focus.
Our Greater Manchester system continues to benefit from the workforce development investment, from past learning, resources, tools, and activities that have become business as usual. We are proud of what the funding has enabled us to do and believe this is an excellent return on investment.
You can also read last year’s Workforce Development Funding End of Year Report (2022 2023).
Mental Health
The mental wellbeing team has created this document outlining free mental wellbeing and mental health training available for health and social care staff.
There are a number of online mental wellbeing training and resources you can use to understand more about supporting yourself and others.
This has been produced as a digital document with links to websites for more information and how to book onto training.
If you require this in an alternative format, please email gmhscp.digital@nhs.net.
New Good Conversation Guide is now live!
This interactive guide is available to support good conversations between everyone across our Greater Manchester health and care workforce
The Good Conversations Guide (PDF) provides an overview on when and how we should be having conversations to make sure we are all getting the best out of them. You will find resources to guide you on how to approach the conversation, what topics to cover, where to have it, as well as top tips for managers and templates for recording your conversation.
The guide was first developed in 2021 and this latest edition has been developed by NHS Greater Manchester to continue to support the wider Greater Manchester health and care workforce. This includes colleagues in the NHS and social care, as well as those in the voluntary sector and those delivering health and care services in the private sector.
You can use the guide in its entirety or make the most of individual resources or tips. Please share with your colleagues and networks and make sure to credit NHS Greater Manchester.
Start your conversations today.
Vision Board
If you would like to set yourself some goals for 2023, then have a look at this great Vision Board resource developed by Jessie Dhaliwal, a Paediatric nurse from the Treehouse Unit at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, and Digital Fellow with the Shuri Network. This includes a handy guide to help you on your journey.
Greater Manchester Workforce Summit 2024
Evaluation Framework
This evaluation framework has been created by NHS Greater Manchester to support the evaluation of health and care projects or pieces of work. The framework includes guidance, training videos, and templates to help make the process as simple as possible.
Evaluation helps us understand the extent to which a project has done what it set out to do. It can help highlight benefits, celebrate success, create an opportunity for shared good practice, and demonstrate value for money. Evaluation can also help identify areas for improvement and support existing and future work.
We want to ensure our people in social care feel recognised and valued for their important contribution to our system as part of our commitment to greater integration.
We want to develop a culture that promotes collaboration and empowers our people to work across organisational and geographical boundaries and move more easily between services.
We want to improve employment practices within health and care to help drive economic and social recovery and growth in our communities. To enable more people to work flexibly to support a good work/life balance.
Good employment consists of providing quality work that is inclusive, fairly compensated, offers security and flexibility and cultivates an environment where health and wellbeing thrives.
The Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter is a voluntary membership and assessment scheme which has been created to improve employment standards across all GM employers. It provides a framework for employers to demonstrate commitment to and delivery of good practice in all characteristics of good employment.
To find out more about what it’s like to be part of the Good Employment Charter, watch our video with Dr Nikesh Vallabh, whose medical centre was the first healthcare organisation to receive Good Employment status in Great Manchester.
Since then other healthcare organisations have also joined the charter including NHS Greater Manchester. Hear why employers think it’s more important than ever for healthcare organisations in Greater Manchester to join.
Have a look at the following guide on how to register as a Supporter and how to achieve approved Charter membership.
You can also join our community of practice network, which has been established across primary care, social care, NHS trusts and community organisations to support employers to learn about best practice and implementation from exemplar employers; reflect on existing workforce practice and policy; and develop a greater understanding of the Charter membership application process and benefits.
Please contact gm.workforce@nhs.net for more details
Once you have registered as a Supporter, you can access many of the GM Good Employment Engagement events which can be found on the events section of the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter website
Further Resources:
- Charter Brochure
- Good Employment in Social Care
- Inclusive Recruitment event Salford – Northern Care Alliance
- Membership Criteria
- Most improved organisation 23- Persona Care and Support Ltd
- Pay – What does Good Employment mean to you?
- People Management – What does Good Employment mean to you?
- Real Living Wage Foundation Toolkit for NHS Employers
- Supporter Commitment
- Working carers toolkit
We want to support better wellbeing cultures and provide everyone with access to good wellbeing support, regardless of their employer, to reduce sickness levels and improve overall wellbeing.
Good wellbeing is when we are able to be at our best, both at work and home.
The Greater Manchester Wellbeing Toolkit is an interactive toolkit to help support our health and care workforce to be at your best. We have refreshed this toolkit to reflect the things that you have told us matter to your wellbeing.
It provides advice on keeping well physically, practically and psychologically, as well top tips on how you can support those around you, and find help for yourself or someone you know when it’s needed.
Have a look at the latest version of the GM ICP Wellbeing Toolkit, launched in June 2023, and the supporting GM Wellbeing Engagement Quiz.
You can also join one of the wellbeing workshops programmed to support the Toolkit – all dates and details are found here
Further Resources:
We want to improve the experience of all of our diverse people, so they feel represented, heard and treated with respect. We want to develop effective, compassionate and inclusive leaders that are representative of our communities and support our people to be their best.
Greater Manchester Workforce Disability Equality Scheme (WDES)
The Foundations for Change framework provides the foundational building blocks of an inclusive system that uses the social model of disability as the standard for workplaces across Greater Manchester’s health, social care and locality sectors. The recommendations of this Framework will support an organisation’s WDES (Workforce Disability Equality Standard), employee wellbeing and the recruitment of disabled staff and staff with long-term health conditions. Within this report, you will find the Framework itself and a summary of the research which was used to co-produce the report with disabled staff, staff with long-term health conditions, and their managers. Further information can be gained by emailing admin@breakthrough-uk.co.uk.
In Greater Manchester it is estimated that 120k people have experienced some form of Multiple Disadvantage in their lives. Being exposed to long-term poverty, deprivation, trauma, abuse and neglect can manifest into homelessness, substance misuse, domestic violence, contact with the criminal justice system and mental ill health. The impact of this on health and care services is significant. Multiple Disadvantage is not an individual issue, but a systemic problem that needs to be addressed holistically with sustainable solutions at a GM-level.
Greater Manchester Multiple Disadvantage Framework
The GM Multiple Disadvantage Framework supports making system and organisational changes in this space, and sets out recommendations for system leaders and policy makers around:
- Recruitment
- Retention
- Improving experience and access to services
LGBT Foundation Resources
We have partnered with the LGBT Foundation to create a set of resources to support how we can be more inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community in the workplace. Together we can create a more inclusive culture.
We want to attract the best people to work in health and care from within our communities and further afield to grow a sustainable workforce. We want to develop career pathways across health and care by providing access to the best education and training, supporting progression and promotion from entry level to board level. We also want to improve how we plan for the future together in a truly integrated way.