Welcome to the Recipe!

Follow the Stages of the Recipe Process Map: click on a Stage, download your Ingredients (documents and resources) and follow the Method (actions with assigned roles) to complete that Stage.  Need to know what you should be doing right now or which Stages are relevant to your role?  Filter the Recipe to quickly access the support you need.  Click on The Recipe to get started now.

 

Find out more about the different Roles involved in workforce planning, join in the Discussion where you can share best practice with colleagues and request further support, download Cookbooks – packs of resources – to suit your particular needs, and create your own Cookbook as you browse the site.  Check out the Links and Resources page for interesting articles, reports and documents relating to workforce planning – including Case Studies and examples of best practice – and see our Events page for upcoming meetings, events and support sessions.

 

Please Contact Us to let us know what you think of the Recipe and what we can do to make it even better.  We hope you enjoy your visit.

What's Cooking

Current planning stages

Below you can see the active Stages of the process map.  These are the Stages where work is currently being completed as part of a Trust's annual workforce planning cycle.

See recipe overview page

Collate Service Workforce Plans

  • Refer to internal process document for roles, responsibilities and timescales. Ensure these have been clearly communicated. (See Agree Internal Process.)

  • Ensure completed service workforce plans have been submitted to the Workforce Planner by the required deadline.
  • Collate service workforce plans to give an aggregated Trust workforce plan. This may be done centrally by the HR or Workforce team, or there may be an intermediate level with service workforce plans being collated into divisional level plans, which are then aggregated to Trust level.

  • Identify any queries, risks or topics for discussion at the Trust workforce plan confirm and challenge meeting (see Service workforce plan confirm and challenge).

View stage details

Trust Workforce Plan Confirm and Challenge

  • Distribute aggregated Trust workforce plan ahead of the meeting.

  • The confirm and challenge meeting should cover:

    • Any queries, risks or topics for discussion identified by the Workforce Planner when collating service workforce plans;
    • Ensuring that the aggregated plan is affordable, safe and in line with the corporate strategy, commissioning intentions and system priorities;
    • Capturing any further actions, questions or areas where more information is required.

  • Any actions, questions or areas where more information is required identified at the confirm and challenge meeting should be completed and returned to the Workforce Planner by the agreed deadline.

  • Incorporate any changes into the aggregated Trust workforce plan.

  • Sign off of aggregated plan by Executive Team.

  • Communicate the Trust workforce plan to internal stakeholders.

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Engagement with HEIs Regarding Workforce Priorities

  • Identify your key contact within the HEIs in your area.

  • Information it would be useful to share with your HEI contact includes:

    • Areas that are difficult to recruit to;
    • Areas where there are issues with student placements (e.g. not enough placement capacity);
    • Areas with planned workforce changes that will have an impact on demand;
    • Potential changes to course content (e.g. requested additions to course modules);
    • Risks and issues (e.g. attrition).

  • Information it would be useful for HEIs to share with Trusts:

    • Any planned changes to course numbers;
    • Any planned changes to student placements;
    • Any planned changes to course content;
    • Risks and issues (e.g. attrition).

  • Make sure any risks and issues arising from these conversations are captured and mitigated against.

View stage details

Scenario Modelling

  • Select an approach or approaches to generate scenarios.

  • Gather intelligence to inform scenario modelling e.g. retirement data, projected changes to activity levels, changes to service models.

  • Generate scenarios, input data and run scenario model.

  • Consult Service Leads to assess impact of scenario modelling and determine most likely outcome(s).

  • Once most likely scenario(s) has been developed, consult with Finance Lead regarding financial impact.

  • Incorporate scenario modelling into the forecast workforce demand in the service workforce plan.

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Demand and Supply

  • Compare workforce demand, informed by scenario modelling, with current workforce.

  • Identify any gaps between current supply and demand.

  • Assess impact of any workforce transformation or system workforce plans on supply and demand at Trust level.

  • Establish how gaps will be addressed e.g. are you able to recruit additional workforce? Are you able to reduce the workforce? Could any new roles or new ways of working be implemented?

  • Where possible, incorporate proposed changes in the service workforce plan.

  • Where identified gaps remain, ensure these are documented in the risk log and action plan.

  • Share identified supply and demand issues with system workforce planners where appropriate.

View stage details

Risks, Action Plan and Review

  • Identify and record risks and issues. Create an action plan to mitigate against these.

  • Create a project plan to ensure that the workforce plan is kept on track and key responsibilities are identified.

  • Monitor and review the risk register, action plan and project plan throughout the process.

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Sustainability and Transformation Plan Return

  • Communicate requirements for workforce information to Trusts.

  • Complete Trust element of the workforce section of the Sustainability and Transformation Plan return.

  • Collate workforce section of the Sustainability and Transformation Plan return.

  • Submit Sustainability and Transformation Plan return to NHSE.

View stage details

System Priorities

  • Identify STP priorities, informed by guidance from NHSE.

  • Establish what system workforce planning activity is required against the priority areas and appoint Workstream Leads to take this work forward. This may be LWAB or STP driven.

  • Assess Corporate Strategy to ensure this aligns with system priorities.

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Engagement

  • Identify all of the health and care organisations which feed into the pathway you are workforce planning for, and the named individuals you will need to engage with.

  • Use the stakeholder mapping tool to analyse your stakeholders, identifying who has the greatest influence and interest. You can then prioritise your stakeholders to ensure each receives the appropriate level of engagement.

  • Create a communication and engagement plan detailing how each stakeholder will be communicated with throughout the project. Be clear with your stakeholders what you expect their responsibilities to be, if any, in developing and implementing the system workforce plan.

View stage details

Define the System

  • Book a meeting or workshop to complete the following actions with your key stakeholders.

  • Define the purpose of the system in a high level Mission Statement.

  • Identify the key goals and objectives of the system.

  • Identify the steps along the patient pathway that will deliver the objectives.

View stage details

System Workforce Plan

  • Perform a gap analysis by comparing current workforce supply with future workforce demand. This will tell you which roles you will need more or less of in the future, but should also highlights any skills gaps in current staff.

  • Prepare an action plan to address the identified gaps. For example, if more staff in a particular role are required, you will need to plan for an increase in recruitment. Where you have identified a skills gap, you will need to plan for the necessary training and development. Pay particular attention to any critical roles (see System Demand and Future Workforce) to ensure there will be an adequate supply.

  • Identify the mechanisms by which the plan will be monitored and delivered. This should include:

    • Establishment of a review body to monitor progress, with clear timescales and success criteria;
    • Identification of the data needed to assess progress, as well as the resources to collect and analyse these;
    • The resources needed to deliver the plan;
    • Clear roles and responsibilities for all of the above.

  • Organisational change, implementation of new roles and new ways of working can be difficult and unsettling for the staff involved. Change management activities should be planned to engage with and support staff.

  • Collate information into a system workforce plan and submit for review.

  • Review and sign off system workforce plan.

  • Communicate finalised workforce plan to relevant stakeholders.

View stage details

System Demand and Future Workforce

  • Building on the strategy map, complete an activity analysis to define the activities required for each step along the patient pathway.

  • Use a RACI matrix to identify the roles and responsibilities required for each activity.

  • When working across a whole system, there can be a confusing mix of different job titles covering similar roles, or similar job titles covering very different roles. Use the “role families” approach to agree a common language for all roles, and the different work levels within each role, that will make up your future workforce.

  • Review proposal for the future workforce to ensure this meets expectations and aligns with system priorities e.g. there may be dependencies between this an another workforce plan for a different patient pathway within the same system.

  • Specify to all system organisations which current workforce information is needed. This may include more than just workforce numbers e.g. age profile is needed to identify any risks associated with an ageing workforce.

  • Provide organisation’s baseline workforce information to the system workforce planner.

  • Collate organisational workforce information to give a baseline for the system as a whole.

  • Identify the critical roles in the system using the attached critical roles template. Critical roles are those that are both scarce and key to delivering the system purpose. These roles can then be prioritised in terms of recruitment, talent management and succession planning.

View stage details

Discussion

Recent topics and comments

  • Discussion Forum

    Want to contribute to a thread or set up your own discussion? Simply go to the discussion forum and click on register.  Add a few details and your account is created.

  • New to Workforce Planning

    New to Workforce Planning? Have a look at the Workforce Planning for Beginners Cookbook.

Links & resources

Latest links and resources.

  • NHS planning guidance 2016/17

    NHS planning guidance setting out a clear list of national priorities for 2016/17 and longer-term challenges for local systems, together with financial assumptions and business rules.

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  • Five Year Forward View

    Oct 2014 paper setting out how the health service needs to change, arguing for a more engaged relationship with patients, carers and citizens so that we can promote wellbeing and prevent ill-health. This paper represents the shared view of the NHS’ national leadership, including NHS England, HEE, PHE, Monitor, TDA and CQC.

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  • Six Steps methodology

    The Skills for Health Six Steps Methodology to Integrated Workforce Planning is a practical approach to planning that ensures you have a workforce of the right size with the right skills and competences.

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