Overview
The Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath has underlined the need to ensure sufficient qualified health and care professionals and support them when they are in the workforce. However, we know recruitment and retention of these professionals are both challenging, given it takes nurses, doctors, and other health professionals typically many years to travel fully through the education pipeline. This makes sudden increases in workforce demand difficult to mitigate, as workers are difficult to replace, with few levers available for rapid recovery.
There is also an inherent tension between the need that politics and finance often act on short timescales, and the reality that systemic workforce planning requires a far greater amount of time for changes to embed. We also have to strike a balance between expediting training and entry into the workforce, without compromising either quality or patient safety.
The third seminar of the series will explore a range of workforce planning issues, including short- and long-term drivers of demand and supply of key workers, the range of policy levers at ones disposal, the importance of sustainable planning (in balancing different planning and time horizons, the mix between different professions and geographies, and professional scope and licence to practice), and strategies to plan for these key professions.
Agenda
Chair: Professor Mark Radford, Chief Nurse and Deputy Chief Executive, Health Education England
Professor Mark Radford is currently Chief Nurse and Deputy Chief Executive of Health Education England, and Deputy Chief Nursing Officer for England. In his role Mark supports the Chief Nursing Officer in ensuring the NHS workforce is fit for the future. Mark was also honoured with a CBE in The Queen’s New Year Honours 2022 list
Rob Smith, Director of Workforce Planning and Intelligence, Health Education England
Rob Smith has worked for the NHS for over 34 years and joined Health Education England in 2012. He was co-author of the first ever national ‘Workforce Plan for England’ and in 2015 he led HEE’s hosting of the 15th International Workforce Collaborative conference.
Veerle Vivet, Statistician, Federal Public Service of Health, Belgium
Veerle Vivet carries out the statistical analysis required to monitor the workforce of healthcare professionals and study its evolution according to forecast scenarios. She participated in The Joint Action Health Workforce Planning and Forecasting and its successor the EU SEPEN project.
Dr Shashank Vikram, Consul General of India, Birmingham
Dr Vikram serves as the Consul General of India in the United Kingdom. Dr Vikram is also a medical graduate. He has also served in various capacities in Government of India, in Indian embassies abroad, in the State Government of Uttar Pradesh, and has been Consul General of India in Durban, South Africa.
Gila Zarbiv, Certified Nurse Midwife, Masters in Woman’s Health, Israeli Midwives Association
Gila Zarbiv CNM, MSN is a senior certified nurse midwife from Israel and lead midwife for infectious disease prevention at her labour and delivery ward . She is published in several fields such as COVID-19, vaccines, and pregnancy. Gila also sits on the steering committee for Midwives and Focus for the Nursing Now Challenge.
Professor Dr Ronald Batenburg, Endowed Professor in Health Workforce and Organisation Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen
Professor Ronald Batenburg is a trained sociologist with a masters and a PhD. From 2009 onwards, he was a program coordinator at Nivel, specialising in human resources for health. Since 2017, Ronald has been an Endowed Professor in Health Workforce and Organisation Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen, Department of Sociology.
