4 minute read
Starting a movement
Professor Irene Gray previews a major event this month where senior NHS and care home leaders will come together to challenge artificial boundaries and explore innovation for the sustainability of the health and social care workforce
Held at Kings Place in King’s Cross, London on 18 May
‘Health and Social Care Workforce: Wellbeing, Integration and Sustainability’, which is co-funded by Care England and Talent for Care will bring together senior leaders from the NHS and social care to discuss workforce sustainability and integrated care systems.
Event organiser Professor Irene Gray tells Caring Times: “We had a few webinars last year and moved towards thinking we really need to be trying to get senior NHS, care home people and social care people in the same room discussing their joint problems and challenges.”
Gray says one of the drivers behind the programme had come from a recent training programme launched by Nicola Ranger, director of nursing at the Royal College of Nursing.
“She had started to share her training programmes with the local care home sector so that they could get to know each other and recognise that they have the same skillset,” Gray says. “That contributed to our idea for an event about the wellbeing of staff, sustainability of staff for the future and how we achieve that integration, and how we can only really get that integration by getting people together at the table to accept and acknowledge that health and social care is one system.”
Andrew Whelan, chair of event co-funder Future Care Capital, adds: “The Future Care Capital philosophy of change is to facilitate bringing together all the right people in the room. People often try to do that, but they sit in their own silos and look at problems and solutions separately. What we are saying is it doesn’t really matter where you sit, we are all part of the solution and the system should be seen as a whole. It’s a health and care system whereas the public just think of the NHS.
“When you introduce nurses from the NHS into a care home they are quite surprised at what they are being asked to do and what responsibilities they have that they hadn’t had before. This event is to begin that process of opening people’s eyes and having some of the policymakers in the room to get them thinking about what we need to do to make a lasting change.”
Keynote speakers on the event’s three strands of wellbeing, sustainability and the workforce will be followed by round table discussions led by industry experts. The effective inclusion of the care home sector into integrated care systems will be one of the key topics under debate.
“We are hoping to get something where we can put a marker in the sand and say we can do something different,” Gray notes. “I don’t believe for one minute we’re going to change the world on the day, but I’d like to think we’ve started a movement which is in the interests of patient care. We are there for one reason and that is excellence in patient care. If we can stop people languishing in hospital for long periods of time unnecessarily, many of whom pass away unnecessarily, then we should be able to do that.”
Gray lists representation of care homes at integrated care board level, joint training across the sectors, regulation of care staff training, and care staff professional recognition by the Nursing
“We should facilitate people and not create ‘us and them’ situations, and respect the fact that that people are doing wonderful jobs whether they happen to work for a private care home or in an NHS hospital. They are all trying to do better things and provide better care.”
Midwifery Council as among the event’s key long-term goals.
Whelan adds: “What I would like to see is that this is a start of a movement where the debate in the UK around health and care is about the outcomes and the provision that meets the needs that people have and that the debate is not about how much money is going into the NHS which is where it is stuck at the moment. It’s about reframing those questions so that social care
“We have a great opportunity now with integrated care systems. The high-level intention is to make this happen, but the devil is in the detail and implementation” becomes much more important to people and therefore influences policy.
The sense that we have is that people receive the care they receive in spite of the system not because of it. Our vision is that they will be able to get the care that they need because of the system, and that is by breaking down the barriers between what is perceived as more than one system currently, so that you have a truly integrated system.
“We should facilitate people and not create ‘us and them’ situations, and respect the fact that that people are doing wonderful jobs whether they happen to work for a private care home or in an NHS hospital. They are all trying to do better things and provide better care.
“We have a great opportunity now with integrated care systems. The high-level intention is to make this happen, but the devil is in the detail and implementation, and there’s a danger it goes the way of all these other integration exercises where they are not implemented properly and people are left off the table and therefore don’t have a voice – and it just becomes another silo talking to itself.”
To learn more about the event and book your tickets, visit: bit. ly/414h2jR. If you would like to discuss being involved as a sponsor, contact Daren Thomas at Care England at: dthomas@careengland.org.uk
