NCF Member Briefing 30.6.23
NHS Long Term Workforce Plan
The government recently published its Long Term Workforce Plan for the NHS. You can read our response to it here.
In short, it is disappointing. What has appeared is a plan that only talks to the needs of the NHS and has a glaring gap around professionals within adult social care and any non-clinical professional in health and social care. The irony of publication on the day before the first anniversary of the establishment of the Integrated Care Systems should not be ignored. It makes repeated reference to integration, recognising the importance of stabilising and improving adult social care in making this plan a success, but contains no plans for how the government would do this. This seems extremely short-sighted and is characteristic of an ongoing deprioritisation of social care, which has seen reforms delayed, scrapped and reduced in scope over the last few years. We are also concerned that the way in which this plan is designed will simply drain social care of its workforce – particularly nurses and support workers.
We continue to call on the government to:
Pay care workers at a rate according to their skills and competencies determined by an independent review body, aligned, at the very least, with NHS Agenda for Change Pay Bands.
Develop a long-term workforce plan for adult social care which models future workforce requirements and seeks to diversify the types of roles available, as well as developing career structures and qualifications. This should be aligned with NHS workforce planning to enable a joined-up workforce and to enhance the quality of care provided by both the NHS and social care.
Introduce professional registration for all adult social care workers and establish a professional body to represent them. This must be fully funded by the state.
Please see our attached briefing.
Oliver McGowan Code of Practice Consultation
DHSC has launched a consultation on the Oliver McGowan Code of Practice which will close on 19 September. NCF is currently working out what its approach will be in its response to this consultation – we will be seeking the views of members and some partner organisations. Please do send through your thoughts on the Code of Practice.
Accessing COVID-19 Treatments
DHSC and UKHSA have circulated the attached document outlining how people who have been identified as being potentially eligible for COVID-19 treatments can get access. Please read it because the process changed at the beginning of June.
Damp and Mould Findings for Social Landlords
The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) published a report earlier this week on how social landlords are approaching tackling damp and mould in their tenants’ homes. The key findings are:
· Better performing landlords manage their data well.
· Strong oversight from boards or councillors is essential.
· Some boards and councillors had limited oversight of the condition of tenants’ homes, and in some cases they didn’t have specific processes for identifying and tackling damp and mould.
Major Conditions Strategy
Earlier this week, DHSC’s consultation on the Major Conditions Strategy closed. NCF has written a response to the consultation. In terms of the scope of the strategy, we are concerned that the intention to bring both dementia and mental health services into an overarching strategy may, inadvertently, reduce the focus on both dementia and mental health (a focus that a standalone strategy would enable).
As well as limiting the degree to which major conditions such as dementia can be consulted on, this call for evidence restricts the degree to which major conditions that aren’t “the big six” can be addressed. The rationale behind an all-encompassing overarching strategy would be to conceptualise major conditions in a person-centred, holistic way. The scope of the proposed strategy does not seem to deliver on this and doesn’t make use of what is an opportunity to discuss the connectedness and interdependencies between major conditions. We have a number of key messages for DHSC which can be read at this link.
NHS England’s Community Health Services webinar - fortnightly on a Friday at 4pm
Leaders and partners from community health services including social care providers are invited to join NHS England’s fortnightly webinar chaired by Matthew Winn, adviser to NHS England’s Community Services Team and CEO of Cambridgeshire Community NHS Trust.
Hear the latest updates from NHS England’s national team as well as good practice from around the country.
Have you or your team worked collaboratively across social care and health teams to improve the lives of our residents? If you would like to share your best practice and learnings at a future webinar please email community.services1@nhs.net and put 'CHS webinar' in the subject header.
Health Education England/NHS Benchmarking 2022 National Workforce Benchmarking Survey of Social Workers and Wider Social Care Workforce Supporting People with Mental Health Conditions - Thursday 6th July 2023 10.00 – 11.30
NHSE/I operational priorities and planning guidance for 2022 anticipated growth and improvement of mental health services. With this in mind, it asked Integrated Care Systems to develop a mental health workforce plan to 2023/24 in collaboration with mental health providers, HEE and partners in the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) and education sector.
This webinar will provide the first opportunity to consider and discuss the findings of HEE and NHS Benchmarking Network’s 2022 survey, undertaken in partnership with the Association of Mental Health Providers, of service model and workforce composition of VCSE the mental health sector, which supports one in eight people with mental health conditions in England.
Contributors include:
Carla Fourie, Director of Social Care, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
Rachel Willis, Associate Director of SW Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust
Jason Brandon, Mental Health Social Work lead in the Office of the Chief Social Worker, DHSC.
Duncan Tree, Director of Strategy & Relationships, Association of Mental Health Providers
The call will be on Microsoft Teams, using the details below:
Meeting ID: 365 051 357 496
Passcode: 76oCBE