Nursing and Midwifery Faculty

The Nursing and Midwifery Faculty provides the infrastructure to facilitate system-wide working on specific nursing and midwifery workforce challenges, pipeline sustainability and sharing of good practice.

The Nursing and Midwifery Faculty takes strategic leadership from the system and provides assurance on priorities and deliverables across the Derby and Derbyshire ICB.

Our priority is to make improvements to the Derby and Derbyshire population’s life expectancy and healthy life expectancy levels in comparison to other parts of the country, and reduce the health inequalities that are driving these differences.

The purpose of the Nursing and Midwifery Faculty is to proactively plan for and design strategies to lead emerging local and national workforce challenges which will focus on improving recruitment, retention, expanding and introducing new roles including developmental roles and professional related workforce development.

Stock image of a nurse. Image from travisdmchenry at Pixabay

Across Derbyshire, we employ and work with a diverse workforce; choosing Joined Up Care Derbyshire (JUCD) as a place of work means you will have opportunities to work in the acute sector, primary care, mental health, learning disability, schools, specialist services, social, voluntary and independent sectors. We will proactively respond to workforce issues and find solutions working cohesively across the Derbyshire system.

The Faculty works together to implement the Long Term Workforce Plan focusing on Attract / Retain / Reform.

Attract
Making nursing careers in Derbyshire attractive and expanding future pipelines (#Derbyshire nurse, Placement faculty, HCSWs, Apprenticeship Faculty, International Recruitment).

Developing JUCD career pathways from entry level to Enhancing and Advancing practice.

As per the Long Term Workforce Plan we need to significantly increase education and training to record levels, as well as increasing apprenticeships, to deliver more nurses and midwives.

Figures published in January 2024 recorded that there are more nurses and midwives working in the NHS than ever before – with the largest number of midwives ever recorded.

Increase adult nursing training places; to support this ambition, we will work towards achieving this by increasing places to registered nursing associates and nurses qualifying through apprenticeship routes.

The long-term workforce plan predicts that by 2036/37 there is an expected shortfall of the FTE in:

Community nurses (at least 37,000)

Mental health nursing and learning disability nursing (to more than 17,000)

Critical care nurses (will remain at around 4,000)

We will grow the number and proportion of NHS staff working in mental health, primary and community care to enable the service ambition to deliver more preventative and proactive care across the NHS. This Plan sets out an ambition to grow these roles 73% by 2036/37.

NHS Data Jan 2024 – Targeted initiatives to support the midwifery workforce to grow included NHS England funding retention programmes in every maternity unit in England and additional in-year investment of up to £4 million to accelerate the number of Professional Midwifery and Nurse Advocates.

Visit:

NHS Apprenticeships

Health Careers – nursing careers
Retain

Ensuring the JUCD preceptorship offer is aligned to national framework and work towards attaining a quality mark across all organisations offering preceptorship, as well as making sure our nurses and midwives at the later part of their careers have opportunities to utilise their skills and knowledge in different settings.

We plan to develop a system-wide space for Professional Nurse and Professional Midwifery Advocates to continue professional development. Monitor access to clinical supervision for NMC registered professions across JUCD and be sighted on system training available to ensure quality and consistency.

As per the long term workforce plan, by improving culture, leadership and wellbeing, we will ensure up to 130,000 fewer staff leave the NHS over the next 15 years.

We will work to ensure that we keep more of the staff we have within the health service by better supporting people throughout their careers.

The key to improving retention is to improve the experiences of our nurses and midwives who work so hard to provide patients and the public with the very best care.

Preceptorship

See:

Principles of Preceptorship: NMC

Preceptorships – NHS Employers

Professional Nurse Advocate (PNA)

PNAs provides facilitation of restorative supervision to their colleagues and teams, in nursing and maternity, where outcomes point to improved staff wellbeing and retention, alongside improved patient outcomes. The PNA training equips staff to listen and to understand challenges and demands of fellow colleagues, and to lead support and deliver quality improvement initiatives.

See:

NHS England – Professional Nurse Advocate

International nurses support

As per the long term workforce plan we will work with regulators and others to take advantage of EU exit freedoms and capitalise on technological innovation to explore how nursing students can gain the skills, knowledge and experience they need to practise safely and competently in the NHS in less time. Nurses would still have to meet the high standards and outcomes defined by their regulator.
Reform

Focus on keeping abreast of all emerging national drivers on the NMC workforce and sharing information.

We aim to improve productivity by working and training in different ways, building broader teams with flexible skills and ensuring staff have the right skills, increases flexibility in deployment, and provides the care patients need more effectively and efficiently.

See:

NQN System Rotation