Bay Health and Care Partners new Workforce Strategy aims to build a resilient, rewarded workforce

Bay Health and Care Partner’s vision of high quality, sustainable care, built around preventative care for the whole population, can only be achieved if there is a sufficiently skilled, organised, engaged and motivated workforce, available in the right numbers and at the right locations, in order to deliver it.

Our first priority for the next 12 months is ensuring the health and wellbeing of all colleagues in the patch, rolling out the “Flourish” approach across the whole place-based partnership with all partners contributing to the services and resources Allied to this is ensuring high levels of take-up for both flu and COVID vaccinations across health and social care.

The Workforce Strategy project group has begun mapping where staff are employed, to get a sense of the numbers working in health and care and, importantly, where there are shortages or gaps in skills.

There are nearly 16,000 people working in Morecambe Bay, though that number doesn’t reflect those employed in mental health or the ambulance service (as those numbers are less easy to break down to the Morecambe Bay patch). More than half, 53%, of staff in a caring role work in social care.

Rapid expansion of the services provided by local GPs will see an increase in the types of roles working in communities and neighbourhoods. Recruitment is underway for new paramedics, clinical pharmacists, dieticians, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, roles which will support people closer to their own home, and improve access to the care people need, reducing the demand on GP appointments. A new online recruitment hub: Vacancies – NHS Careers NW will be a single hub for recruitment across health and care. Read more here.