Reflections on our Workforce Supply Conference 2024
On Monday 30 September 2024 we held our fourth annual virtual workforce supply conference, Transforming the Healthcare Workforce: Train, Retain and Reform.
Our attendees told us they had an informative and thought provoking day, filled with insightful and informative presentations. We are will be using these to build resources on our website over the next couple of months. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for the event, you made it an inspiring and engaging day.
I was struck by the importance of getting buy-in from the top when doing things differently and having the patience to let change happen. You need to identify your most valuable stakeholder and work with them to co-design your project. Partnership working does not always look the same, but can take many forms and overcome a variety of obstacles for all parties involved.
-Conference session lead.
Throughout the conference we heard from a range of individuals, organisations and systems over the 14 incredible sessions and got some important takeaways including:
- Getting representatives from different organisations in a room can be crucial to sharing good practice, and this can be taken all the way to system-wide collaboratives such as levy sharing or identifying workforce supply gaps.
- Collaboration with across the education sector is key to future workforce planning.
- The importance of capturing data that includes all learners to make more informed workforce decisions. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
- Getting buy-in from the top to do things differently is vital, as is having patience and giving things time to bed in and change to happen.
From the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) session, I heard that communication is key and it is vitally important to go out to the communities you are trying to reach. DWP can put in bespoke programmes to support employers and is key for upcoming apprenticeship work.
-Conference session lead.
If you were able to get a place the conference recordings are available on the virtual platform for 30 days. But you can also catch up on our opening session with NHS Employers chief executive Danny Mortimer and The Rt Hon Anne Milton below.
I was struck by the importance of communication and how by developing strong relationships with stakeholders and organisations can overcome barriers. Whilst formal networks are important, even just having a conversation with colleagues working in the same area can be so useful for developing ideas and resolving issues.
-Conference session lead.
To make sure you are the first to hear about next years events you can sign up to receive our bulletins, where we will also be sharing the resources we create based on conversations at the event. If you have any follow up questions of feedback please get in touch.
