Workforce productivity forum

NHS Employers has established a national workforce productivity forum with membership from NHS organisations, to create a leading voice on workforce productivity and to influence national developments in this work area.

The forum includes representation from NHS organisations and key stakeholders including the NHS Information centre, DH and Electronic Staff Records. The terms of reference for the forum are detailed below. Below you can also find summaries of discussion from each forum.

• Purpose
• Context
• Key objectives
• Deliverables
• Governance arrangements
• How will we measure the success of the forum?
• Summary of meetings

Purpose

The forum will create a leading voice for the NHS on workforce productivity, by providing NHS organisations with a means in which they can engage and influence national developments by being better informed and gaining a better understanding of current work in both the public and private sector, with the aim to help achieve an increase in workforce productivity in the NHS.

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Context

NHS Employers is responsible for workforce and employment issues, working on behalf of NHS organisations in England. NHS Employers is committed to supporting NHS organisations to improve workforce productivity through engaging with employers and influencing on their behalf. The workforce productivity forum forms part of this work programme.

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Key objectives

The key objectives of the forum are to:

• ensure that NHS organisations have a voice and can begin to influence the workforce productivity agenda in the NHS
• to identify and help overcome any obstacles to productivity in the NHS workforce
• to research and source developments in workforce productivity, reward incentives and staff engagement and share any learning
• to engage key national stakeholders in developing an agreed process for measuring workforce productivity
• to source and share good practice from within the NHS to share learning and help improve workforce productivity.

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Deliverables

A detailed work programme will be developed and will include:

• developing a set of agreed and appropriate indicators for measuring workforce productivity
• providing good practice examples for NHS organisations to share learning on how to improve workforce productivity
• developing support materials including tools, techniques and evidence to assist employers in improving workforce productivity
• establishing networks across the NHS to share learning.

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Governance arrangements

The forum meets quarterly, is a sub-committee of NHS Employers' policy board and is chaired by a member of the policy board. Notes from the forum are circulated to the policy board and comments taken back.

Representation from the NHS on the forum is drawn from senior, board level directors across all sectors of the NHS. The forum has formal links into other working forums across NHS Employers including the medical workforce forum and the healthcare professional forum, to ensure that all sectors and board level directors are represented.

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How will we measure the success of the forum?

We will evaluate the forum by assessing the following:

• feedback from NHS organisations
• impact on workforce productivity
• influence on relevant key stakeholders and policy
• sustainability and credibility of the forum.

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Summary of meetings

24 July 2007 - first forum meeting

NHS Employers also has a virtual reference group of employers from across NHS organisations, who input their views, comments and experiences to help further shape the workforce productivity work programme. If you would like to be involved in either the forum or the virtual reference group please contact productivity@nhsemployers.org.