Workforce planners looking to develop their skills can now sign up for cohort four of the innovative and popular Postgraduate Certificate in Strategic Workforce Planning.

Modules for the twelve month course, which is set to start in February 2009, will be held (depending on availability and each student's preference) at venues in Manchester or London.

The deadline for applications is 5pm, 3rd November 2008.

For full details of the course, run in conjunction with our partners Thames Valley University, please visit the postgraduate certificate pages of the healthcare workforce portal here >>>

There is now less than a month to the Hospital at Night conference 2008, taking place in the shadow of Big Ben at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in the heart of Westminster on 19th September.

Medical directors, NHS trust board members, clinical leads, governance leads and senior managers from across the UK are heading to the free event titled 'Making Hospital at Night Mainstream and Beyond'.

The conference aims to promote the benefits of Hospital at Night, showcasing best practice and emerging work models, celebrating achievements and learning, how the model has been used internationally, plus much more.

We'd love to see you in London, so register for the conference and select your workshops here >>>

Watch out in September for more long term condition resources being added to the healthcare workforce portal.

Long Term Neurological Conditions: A Good Practice Guide to the Development of the Multidisciplinary Team and the Value of the Specialist Nurse continues to capture the imagination of the healthcare sector, with around 2,500 copies now downloaded. Visit here to download yours or feedback.

Together with the hundreds of printed copies that have been distributed to healthcare colleagues across the UK, this makes the resource the most popular ever produced by the Workforce Projects Team.

The neurological guide was the first step in our range of specialist resources for long term conditions. The next stage will focus on long term renal conditions and the delivery of a selection of integrated resources, making the connections with the latest national policy developments.

Visit the Renal section here >>>

The neurological pack can be downloaded here >>>

Recieve more Renal updates by registering your interest here >>>

The latest issue of Calling Time will be published in September.

The 11th edition of the magazine, which is released six times a year features a host of articles highlighting a wide range of WTD related subjects including:

• Comprehensive review of the 2008 Working Time Directive Exhibition
• WTD IT solutions
• The latest WTD practice from the Royal Colleges, plus much more.

The latest issue is coming soon, plus all the previous editions are on the healthcare workforce website >>>

The Workforce Project Team's new Six Steps Methodology to Integrated Workforce Planning is set to be launched in September. Use of the methodology will help ensure that decisions made around design and recruitment of new staff and teams are sustainable, realistic and fully support the delivery of quality patient care and productivity and efficiency.

The methodology takes the user through six clear steps to develop their workforce plan. Planners can use the methodology as an educational resource or refer to it as a best practice guide when they are developing future plans.

To accompany the resource, a new interactive area of the healthcare workforce portal has been developed to offer users a range of workforce planning tools, techniques and resources to support the development of a sustainable and evidence based workforce plan.

Register your interest in the six step refresh >>>

There is still a limited amount of time to obtain copies of a selection of the Workforce Projects Team's essential resources.

A few copies of our Administration Workforce Briefing, Demographics and the Healthcare Workforce Boardroom Briefing, Estates and Facilities Management briefing paper and Maximising Staff Engagement briefing paper are still available.

As an environmentally aware organisation, we won't be renewing stocks of these documents, however they will still be available together with all our other resources on the healthcare workforce portal.

If you would like to request copies of any of our workforce planning documents, briefings or tools, contact workforceprojectsteam@skillsforhealth.org.uk.