LEWISHAM WORKFORCE

AND TRAINING SURVEY

MARCH 2016

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

WHAT IS

LEWISHAM COMMUNITY EDUCATION PROVIDER NETWORK?

Lewisham Community Education Provider Network is a new organisation tasked with helping to improve the quality and localisation of education and training for primary and community healthcare professionals in Lewisham. Our role is to:

  • Support and shape the planning of the future medical workforce.
  • Support and shape the planning of the future non-medical workforce.
  • Support and generate investment in education and training for existing staff, to help them respond effectively to immediate service pressures and to maintain them in the workforce.
  • Support and generate investment in initiatives to expand the workforce to meet future service pressures.
  • Develop local initiatives, with local education providers, to manage local needs.
24%of HCA positions are vacant, the highest of any general practice staff group.
Click here for information about apprenticeships, an important mechanism forrecruiting and training HCAs
33%of practices expressed an interest in training a practice nurse. 15% currently do so. Lewisham needs
more trained practice nurses to fill its future vacancies. We need to grow our own!
Click here for more information about how to find a trainee practice nurse and for details of the £5000 payment for practices
25% of practices expressed an interest in hosting a student nurse placement.15% of practices who have
a trained nurse mentor currently do so. Lewisham needs more practices to host a student and show
them why they should choose practice nursing, in Lewisham, as a career. We need to attract the
best!
Click here for details about how, and why, to host a student nurse
42%of the workforce is in the 50-65 year age range.
Click here for details about apprenticeships, as a means of growing your own future workforce
60%of the management workforce is in the 50-65 year old age range.
Click here for more information about Lewisham CEPN's brief to ensure parity of esteem and focus between non-clinical and clinical training
100% Lewisham CEPN will attempt to ensure that all training that we initiate
has an adequate lead-in period and is offered as flexibly and as locally
as possible, to enable greater access and engagement.
100% All practice staff, are invited to comment on the survey results, or give further
feedback about training and development in Lewisham, at any point.

CONTEXT OF THE SURVEY

Several workforce surveys have been undertaken in the past. Often, the results have not been communicated to those who took time to participate, and no details were made available about how the information would be used.

Lewisham CEPN, in partnership with Lewisham CCG for the purposes of this survey, is reporting the findings back to general practice, as part of a sustained consultation with primary and community care professionals about their training needs in a rapidly evolving environment.

Some of the data requested will contribute to the wider assessment of workforce capacity and support needsthat is being carried out by the Lewisham Adult Integration Care Programme Board, which unites Lewisham CCG with Lewisham Adult Social Care, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, Lewisham Public Health and SLAM in order to develop a whole-system model of care.

The survey supports Lewisham CEPN’s two main remits:

  1. To reinforcethe current workforce, by assessing future needs against capacities and capabilities within the workforce,in order to generate training initiatives that meet the needs of patients while sustaining the interest and commitment of Lewisham’s clinical and non-clinical staff.
  2. To generate initiatives that bring new talent into GP practices and community health organisations (e.g. apprentices, nurses from other domains etc.), in order to support the existing workforce andto develop a workforce for the future.

AIMS OF THE SURVEY

  • To assess workforce capacities in general practice
  • To understand the workforce’s own training priorities
  • To understand the workforce’s own view of the barriers to effective training and development
  • To develop an action plan to begin to address the following:

The need for existing training to better serve the workforce, in terms of content, quality, location and manner of delivery.

To develop new training initiatives to meet evolving needs.

To develop genuinely multidisciplinary training initiatives, at every opportunity.

To achieve parity of esteem and focus between training initiatives aimed at non-clinical staff, and those aimed at physicians, nurses and other clinicians.

To develop a coherent and cutting-edge training and development programme in Lewisham, in order to attract the best non-clinical and clinical staff.

To initiate a process of continuous consultation and responsiveness.

SURVEY RESULTS (108 RESPONDENTS)

WHAT DOES LEWISHAM’S GP PRACTICE WORKFORCE LOOK LIKE?

Actual capacity / WTE capacity / Actual vacancies / WTE vacancies / Staff aged 50-65
GP / 219 / 181 / 18 (8%) / 16 / 76 (35%)
Nurse / 92 / 71.8 / 11 (12%) / 10 / 41 (45%)
HCA / 37 / 28 / 9 (24%) / 9 / 11 (30%)
Admin / 125 / 104 / 7 (6%) / 6 / 55 (44%)
Reception / 234 / 180 / 13 (6%) / 11 / 102 (44%)
Management / 61 / 64 / 4 (7%) / 3 / 36 (59%)
COMMENTS
  • 42% of the general practice workforce in Lewisham is aged between 50 and 65.
  • 50% of the management workforce is aged between 50 and 65.
  • HCA vacancies are the highest of any role in general practice, at 24%.
  • Nurse vacancies are the second highest of any role, at 12%
  • The overallWTE GP to nurse ratio is
1: 0.39.
  • The range of GP to nurse ratios is
1: 0.13 - 1: 0.7
WHAT LEWISHAM CEPN PROPOSES TO DO
  • An apprenticeship programme is being developed in partnership with Lewisham Council, to bring fresh new talent into Lewisham’s NHS workforce and to support the development of a mixed workforce.
  • Particular focus in the apprenticeship programme is being maintained on how to recruit and robustly train HCAs.
  • Lewisham CEPN will continue its programme of nurse mentor training to enable more practices to be able to grow their own practice nurses through the trainee nurse programme.
  • Lewisham CEPN will continue to encourage undergraduate nurse placements in general practice, in order to attract student nurse to practice nursing in Lewisham.
  • Lewisham CEPN will continue to support and promote Lewisham general practice as a place of excellence.
  • More introductory and intermediate management training will be scoped and/or developed locally, to develop potential practice managers of the future.

HOW MANY OF THE 108 RESPONDENTS EXPRESSED AN INTEREST IN CURRENT LEWISHAM CEPN INITIATIVES?

Apprenticeship programme for GP practices
Click here for more information about apprenticeships / 52
Motivational interviewing training for receptionists
Click here for more information about the motivational interviewing pilot / 88
Training a new practice nurse programme
Click here for more information about training a practice nurse in your practice and the incentive payment that comes with it / 30
Undergraduate nurse placements in general practice
Click here for more information about hosting undergraduate nurses at your practice / 23

HOW MANY RESPONDENTS WANT TO BE INVOLVED IN SHAPING TRAINING AND EDUCATION IN LEWISHAM?

Enormous interest was expressed in wanting to help shape Lewisham’s future training and development strategy.
Lewisham CEPN is committed to a programme of sustained consultation with the primary and community care workforce, in order to ensure that their needs define the training and development offered across the borough, and across professions and organisational boundaries.
Requests to interested parties for inputinto the planning and delivery of training will be made for specific initiatives, as appropriate.
Lewisham CEPN looks forward to working closely with you.

WHAT ARE THE TRAINING PRIORITIES IDENTIFIED BY THE RESPONDENTS?

  1. Who were the respondents?

Practice Managers/Non-Clinical Partners / 34%
GPs / 29%
Administrators / 13%
Practice Nurses/Nurse Practitioners / 10%
Reception staff / 9%
HCAs / 5%
  1. What did they want training in, for themselves and for their colleagues

Reception customer service training / 25%
Practice Nurse/Nurse Practitioner training / 17%
GP training / 16%
Admin/secretarial / 11%
Practice manager training / 11%
HCA / 7%
Other / 13%
COMMENTS MADE
The training areas that were requested several times were:
  • Customer service skills for receptionists, including conflict resolution and negotiating skills.
  • Management training for GPs.
  • General management training.
  • Finance training: general, pensions.
  • HR training (unspecified except by one respondent who noted ‘employment issues’)
  • LTCs and common conditions in the community (e.g. pain relief, child and adolescent mental health)

WHAT LEWISHAM CEPN PROPOSES TO DO
  • Training support for receptionists to help them develop world class customer service skills, in order to better support patients and for them to feel more in control of, and more satisfied in, their role, is a priority area of focus for Lewisham CEPN.
  • Management training opportunities for GPs to be tailored to individual needs. Further consultation will take place to ascertain what should constitute a programme of skills-based training, and how this could be flexibly accessed.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN BARRIERS TO ACCESSING TRAINING?

Workload/Time for self or staff / 34%
Finance/Cost of courses / 19%
No protected time / 13%
Timing of events / 9%
Fragmented/bureaucratic training delivery system / 7%
Backfill / 6%
Not the right training area/Not tailored enough / 5%
Location/Parking / 4%
Quality / 2%
Other / 1%
COMMENTS MADE
  • More training needs to be delivered locally, with more flexibility with dates.
  • Practices find it difficult to release sufficient numbers ofstaff from the same team (reception, nurses, GPs) to attend the same training.
  • PLTs are useful, but are always on the same day, which excludes people who do not work on that day.
  • There are mixed feelings about the relative merits of on-line training and face-to-face.
  • Training is often side-lined by work pressures, and often done in staff’s own time.
  • It was noted by some that even if protected time is offered, the knock-on effect of the work backing up is also a barrier to being able to undertake training.

WHAT LEWISHAM CEPN PROPOSES TO DO
  • Work-based training options will be explored to enable on-the-job learning, where appropriate.
  • Wherever viable, training initiated by Lewisham CEPN will be offered at different times, and more locally than at borough level, to enable greater access.
  • Training initiated by Lewisham CEPN will be advertised at the earliest possible opportunity with the eventual aim of commissioning programmes according to an advance annual timetable.
  • Lewisham CCG has already timetabled 2015-16 PLT events on different days, as follows:
Thursday 05 May 2016 / Diabetes
Wednesday 29 June 2016 / Practice Led
Tuesday 13 September 2016 / Practice Led
Thursday 13 October 2016 / General Practice & Primary Care: Primary Care and Urgent Care Services
Thursday 08 December 2016 / Practice Led
Tuesday 07 February 2017 / Practice Led

PREFERRED METHOD OF COMMUNICATION FROM LEWISHAM CEPN ABOUT TRAINING

Through existing or future meeting structures / 28%
All-practice events (PLTs) / 23%
Surveys / 19%
Regular newsletter / 14%
Lewisham CEPN website / 12%
Email, GPi, EMIS newsfeed / 4%
COMMENTS MADE
The following meetings were noted as preferred conduits for training information from Lewisham CEPN:
  • Neighbourhood meetings
  • Practice Manager Forum
  • Practice Nurse Forum

WHAT LEWISHAM CEPN PROPOSES TO DO
  • A quarterly newsletter of headlines only will be sent out, with links to further information if required, similar to the LMC newsletter format.
  • There will be advertisement of training initiatives at all relevant meetings, including PLTs, with support from the meeting chairs and Lewisham CCG.
  • Up-to-date information on the Lewisham CEPN website will be available about training initiatives.
  • Surveys will be undertaken where appropriate.

Thank you to everybody who contributed to this survey.

If you have any comments about this report, or wish to comment upon training and education generally, please contact unity.

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