South Regional Maternity Workshop

3rd July 2007

The fourth of the Skills for Health - Workforce Projects Team workforce planning capability workshops was held at the Mayfair Conference Centre in London on Tuesday 3rd July 2007 with 71 delegates representing organisations from the South Central, South East Coast and East of England SHA regions.

The aim of this workforce planning development event was to develop the workforce planning capacity and capability within maternity services and help organisations to develop integrated plans for the implementation of Maternity Matters. The day was a mix of presentations and interactive workshops designed to help the delegates become familiar with the the Workforce Projects Team workforce planning approach.

The morning opened with a welcome and introduction followed by presentations highlighting issues identified at the recent CSIP launch events and summary of SHA issues by Fiona Mackay, workforce development consultant, East of England SHA and a presentation overview of workforce demographics and health inequalities across the three SHAs by Ruth Monger, workforce reform and redesign lead, South Central SHA. This was followed by a presentation by Helen O'Dell, consultant LSA midwifery officer around South East Coast SHA and issues to date. Bryan Kessie from the Workforce Projects Team introduced the delegates to the the Workforce Projects Team six step guide to workforce planning. The delegates then completed a number of high level exercises within their locality groups introduced by Stuart Taylor from the Workforce Projects Team around defining the maternity workforce plan, how maternity services can be developed to meet the future needs, what the workforce do we need to deliver the service and what are the characteristics of the workforce? These interactive sessions proved popular and there was lots of discussion around local challenges and issues.

Rather than providing an answer these sessions promoted use of effective workforce planning using the six steps and allows the delegates to experience the workforce planning process which they may use in their localities to develop action plans to meet Maternity Matters. Bryan Kessie then discussed the final steps of the six step guide around action planning and review. He then summarised the workshop content and next steps for the delegates were discussed.

Due to limitations with session timings associated presentations - the national context of maternity workforce (Workforce Review Team) and skills and competencies of the maternity workforce (Skills for Health) - can be found on the right hand side menu.