The establishment of a National Workforce Programme (NWP) within NIMHE was influenced by a number of different initiatives:

• the Workforce Action Team set up by Ministers to look at the workforce and education and training issues of the NSF for Mental Health and the publication of its' Final Report in August 2001;
• the introduction of the Care Group Workforce Teams (CGWTs) whose role is to provide advice about workforce issues;
• the establishment of NIMHE itself where workforce has been recognised as a key issue.

To support the Mental Health CGWT a number of key people have come together as part of a Workforce Implementation Team to co-ordinate and drive forward the workforce agenda.

A wide range of initiatives and actions have been put in place as part of a coherent Workforce Strategy that has six main elements:

• to improve workforce design and planning so as to root it in local service planning and delivery;
• to identify and use creative means of to recruit and retain people in the workforce;
• to facilitate new ways of working across professional boundaries;
• to create new roles to tap into a new reruitment pool and so complement existing staff types;
• to develop the workforce through revised education and training at both pre- and post-qulaification levels;
• to develop leadership and change management skills.

Keep in touch

The NWP's regular newsletter, Workforce, provides up to date information about elements of the programme. If you would like to be sent regular copies please contact John Allcock providing your full name, full postal address and job title.
Current issue of Workforce.

Programme Priorities for 2004-2005, in summary

• to support the implementation of the NIMHE guidance on Workforce Design and Development by way of a national pilot programme;
• to produce an analysis of demand and suppy of staff to influence the commissioning of funding for education and training by the Workforce Development Confederations by way of the National Workforce Numbers Advisory Board;
• to work closely with colleagues in the Department of Health (DH) looking at the staffing implications of the Mental Health Bill;
• to support implementation of the Joint Department of Health/Royal College of Psychiatrists Recruitment and Retention Action Plan for Consultant Psychiatrists;
• to consider taking the same approach to recruitment and retention with regard to other members of the mental health workforce such as nurses;
• to publish the results of research into examples of good practice in non-medical recruitment and retention;
• to work with professional bodies, practitioners and through pilot sites to support new ways of working of psychiatrists, psychologists and other professions supported by guidance;
• to support the introduction of new roles such as the Support, Time and Recovery, Graduate Primary Care and other workers;
• to consider a range of intiatives around education and training to include the introduction of Shared Capabilities, making the links with the National Occupational Standards and the Knowledge and Skills Framework; dissemination of guidance for acute in-patient staff; to improve the quality standard setting and monitoring of Higher Education Institution (HEI) programmes; and providing support to the national network of HEIs.