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National Workforce Unit - Workforce Development

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Workforce Development: The Vision

Workforce Development is crucial to securing the workforce for NHSScotland and its delivery partners in the short, medium and long term. It is integral to the successful reform of health services in Scotland and to the improvement of patient care.

So Workforce Development takes account of:

• Changing roles and skill mixes

• New ways of working and job redesign - partly driven by working times considerations

• Education and training of staff

• Recruitment and retention

• Career packages and pathways.

Fundamentally, it is about getting the right people, with the right skills, to be in the right places at the right time.

The direction of travel is clear. We are building on the foundations laid by the Scottish Integrated Workforce Planning Group in their report Planning Together (January 2002), and taking into account the further comments received at the Workforce Action Day in April this year. In August we published Working for Health - the Workforce Development Action Plan setting out the tasks in this key implementation phase.

Regional Conventions

These important one-day events will offer delegates the opportunity to contribute to the development of the work programme in their areas. Health Ministers will put the workforce development agenda in a wider context and the key messages from Working for Health - the Workforce Development Action Plan (SEHD, August 2002) will be discussed. Work will begin on the development of Regional Workforce Development Networks to integrate with the Regional Service Planning Groups and delegates will participate in workshops designed to explore how the new workforce development arrangements will operate in practice.

The events will address a number of issues crucial to the success of integrated workforce planning and development including: development of the appropriate structure and infrastructure, key stakeholders and relationships, roles and responsibilities, building skilled teams and workforce priorities.

Who should come?

These events will be relevant to a wide range of stakeholders:

• NHS Board Members and Chief Executives

• Regional Planning Group members

• Directors of Finance, HR, Planning and their staff

• Medical Directors and Directors of Nursing

• Trade union and staff side representatives

• Education providers

• Local Authority Social Work managers (including Joint Futures)

• Staff working in the wider healthcare sector.

In short - anyone involved in local service and workforce planning in the relevant area. We acknowledge that there are likely to be a number of relevant people/interested parties within local health economies who do not fall within one of the listed stakeholder groups and we would encourage their identification and inclusion in these events.

Booking

A booking form is attached which should be completed and returned to the conference organiser:

Maureen Hart,
Convention Co-ordinator,
SHSC Convention Management Centre,
Crewe Road South,
Edinburgh
EH4 2LF
E-mail: maureen.hart@shsc.csa.scot.uk

Provisional Programme