Workforce planning development programme to support Maternity Matters

Skills for Health - Workforce Projects Team recently completed a series of five regional workshops to support the implementation of Maternity Matters following local launches of the new maternity policy.

The five workshops were attended by almost 300 staff in total which included a range of clinical staff and their HR and workforce planning colleagues, as well as representatives from the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

These workshops demonstrated patient-led workforce planning, using the Workforce Projects Team's Six Step Guide to Workforce Planning in order to develop and redesign maternity services to help organisations deliver the choice agenda for women. Local issues and challenges were also discussed and teams were able to share good practice and case studies to colleagues across different services within their region. There was a great deal of rich learning shared at these events and it was inspirational to hear of the good practice underway throughout the country. By sharing case studies and good practice examples, colleagues can learn from successes and can clearly see the full journey from vision to implementation.

Many areas have already made huge service improvements by workforce planning to benefit the care women receive and many of these examples from across maternity services will be available in the Workforce Projects Team workforce development resource pack.

The aims of the support programme are:

• To ensure maternity services have the right staff with the right skills to deliver a woman centred service
• To create capability and capacity to develop workforce strategies in response to Maternity Matters
• To ensure the NHS and its partner organisations can work together to review their overall maternity workforce plan
• To help identify and remove barriers to integrated workforce planning.

The key learning area from all the regional workshops was not to plan in isolation - it is vitally important that all key players have involvement in the workforce planning process - including commissioners, educators, HR representatives, service head/leads and clinicians.

In addition to the workforce planning capability workshops and to further support Maternity Matters, the Workforce Projects Team has also developed the following resources:

• A CD learning tool outlining the Six Step Guide to Workforce Planning for all staff involved in the designing of maternity services, including frontline midwifery and clinical staff who will be able to complete the programme in bite size chunks as part of their development. The CD takes the user through each of the steps, suggesting key questions to consider when planning maternity services. At the end of each step there is an audio clip from a key national speaker who will talk further around each of the steps and offer valuable advice.
  To request a copy of the CD please fill out the online form
• A maternity services workforce development resource pack providing policy background, workforce planning principles applied to policy changes in maternity services and case studies of workforce initiatives undertaken across the service.
  The resource pack is now available to download

The Workforce Projects Team has a designated portal area providing a one stop shop for all resources alongside case studies and best practice examples from across maternity services.

There is also an interactive forum within the maternity section where users can ask questions, respond to others' queries, exchange ideas and advice and share their successes and learning.

Presentations and evaluations from each of the regional events and further information on Maternity Matters and the Workforce Project Team's support programme can be found in our Maternity section.

For more information please contact Bryan Kessie, on 0161 266 2063 or email bryan.kessie@skillsforhealth.org.uk