Decision details

The Chair welcomed Heather Tierney-Moore, Chief Executive and Damian Gallagher from Lancashire Care Foundation Trust (LCFT) who were both Senior Responsible Officers (SROs) within the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) Governance Structure. They provided the Committee with an update on the work of the Local Workforce Action Board (LWAB) highlighting progress that had been made since the Scrutiny Inquiry Event.

It was reported that there was a significant difference in the funding that Lancashire and South Cumbria received particularly for medical under-graduate and post-graduate training compared with other parts of the North West and the south of the country. Officers were having discussions at a national level to address the disparity in funding. Lancashire and South Cumbria was under funded by approximately £27m.

The LWAB was also working with Health Education England nationally around the potential for Lancashire and South Cumbria in becoming an exemplar in global health utilising the "earn, learn and return" initiative to provide additional and sustainable method for recruitment. However, the importance of promoting the benefits of working in Lancashire from an academic, training and development perspective and to attract people to live and work in Lancashire was also vital and required a joint approach.

It was noted that considerable work was already happening across NHS organisations on recruitment and retention. Some of the work undertaken by the LWAB included:

• The creation of non-traditional contracts of employment to enable people with the flexibility to work across the whole of Lancashire and South Cumbria and not just employed by one Hospital Trust in one area;
• Funding additional medical places at the private medical school at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN). A small but important commitment to enable local recruitment in the knowledge that people tended to stay where they learned;
• Increased use of Physician Associates;
• Portfolio Career options as well as single specialities;
• Scaling up advanced practitioner nurses;
• Utilising Pharmacists in new ways;
• Minimising the use of agency staff and utilising Trusts' own 'Bank Staff' provisions;
• Sharing staff resources and systems such as payroll systems;
• Changing providers for Occupational Health; and
• Population-centric workforce planning.

Resolved: That;

1. The work of the Local Workforce Action Board (LWAB) be noted; and
2. The Committee write to the Secretary of State for Health and the Chairs of Health Education England and Health Education North West to formally invite appropriate representatives to attend a future meeting of the Committee to address the inequity of funding for medical under-graduate and post-graduate training in Lancashire and South Cumbria.