The UK’s health sector is dealing with two key forces. The first is that of increased demand for healthcare. This has been brought about by rising expectations from the public about the quality and effectiveness of the services it receives. Innovations and advances in medicine are also contributing to increased demand as the range of treatable conditions increases. The growing population and the increases in the number of older people, who are more likely to have a range of long term conditions that need to be treated, have also served to increase demand for care and will do so significantly in the future.
Secondly, since the financial crisis of 2008, there has been downward pressure on the resources available to the health sector both public and private. The UK government has sought to put in place austerity measures to reduce the deficit. As a result, there have been restrictions on the public resources available to health and social care. Additionally, following high profile reviews of the health sector such as the Francis inquiry, Keogh review and Cavendish review, being able to deliver more, and better, with less is therefore a key theme for the sector.
Staffing is the single largest item on the health sector’s bill. One of the greatest conundrums for the sector is how people can be developed and utilised to help meet the demand for more and better with fewer resources at their disposal. How we can make better use of the pool of highly motivated and loyal “non-registered” support workforce, is a key feature of this debate.
A significant proportion – almost 40% (798,600) of the health sector’s 2.1 million-strong workforce, are in either clinical or non-clinical roles that support healthcare professionals, undertaking diagnosis for patients, helping to deliver the care believed to be necessary for patient wellbeing or ensuring that administrative tasks are completed.
The support workforce is active in a range of occupations. Clinical support roles, such as health care assistants and assistant practitioners, as well as technical roles such as radiography assistants and those in the para sciences, often provide direct care to patients under the guidance and supervision of clinical staff. These roles make up around 17% of the total sector workforce.
Recent analysis of support workers by Skills for Health points towards a number of important characteristics that are relevant for those wishing to explore the development of the support workforce. It indicates that support workers are more likely to be:
• Women, as they account for 82% of the support workforce, compared with 78% for the whole workforce
• Part-time, with 42% of support worker jobs being part-time, as opposed to 29% of jobs overall
Any learning and development activities will need to be mindful of the sector’s diverse workforce. But the evidence suggests that following reviews of skills mixes, the sector could save significant amounts of money through the smarter utilisation of support workers and therefore registered workers. The potential gains are significant, with around £100 million being saved per year for every 1% of shift in activities towards the support workforce in the NHS.
There is also the issue of how effective use of support workers can help change the shape and quality of services. The paper draws from our recent experiences of introducing different roles to a number of organisations throughout the UK.
Velindre Cancer Care introduced a role that would increase the efficiency of appointments and flow of patients through the cancer services, thereby making savings and improvements to patient care.
Wellbeing co-ordinators were introduced in East Cheshire who worked alongside neighbourhood teams to accept referrals for patients who can receive additional support. This aided in reducing the amount of unplanned hospital visits and enhanced the wellbeing of patients.
Nail carer roles were introduced in Birmingham after the NHS identified more than 4,000 patients (mainly older people) were attending its podiatry service simply needing their nails cut. By introducing the new support role for care that did not require the attention of a fully qualified podiatrist, this provided a cost effective alternative for routine nail care.
The support worker workforce is a rich source of loyal and enthusiastic employees. Working with them to enhance their skills and the roles they have will lead to improvements in the quality of care and assist in improving efficiency.
The full report is available on the Skills for Health website
Content on this page is produced and paid for by Skills for Health, sponsor of the Guardian Healthcare Professionals Network’s workforce development hub
