Health and wellbeing Starting with our staff. August 2016 I want to talk to you today about our staff. Staff are our greatest asset. Without of staff we couldn’t deliver any kind of patient care. So, when we talk about our staff and their needs to enable them to deliver effective patient care, does it cost too much to invest in our staff? Is health and wellbeing a nice to do…if we have time and extra budget? Or is this core business? Do we need to start with our staff in order to deliver the high quality patient care we all want? I’ll come back to this question at the end….

Our staff story Insert your staff story here.

The facts What is the purpose of the NHS? To help people to live longer healthier lives by providing high quality health and care services that are compassionate, inclusive and constantly-improving. What challenges do we currently face in the NHS? Financial pressure Preventable illnesses High demand Ageing population Low morale Competing priorities As we all know, the purpose of the NHS is to help people to live longer, healthier lives by providing high quality health and care services that are compassionate, inclusive and constantly-improving. And yet, we’ve all heard the national story, the NHS is under huge pressure to keep delivering. The demand is increasing and the budget is stretched.

What do these challenges cost the NHS? High vacancy rates – From January – March 2016 there were 78,112 vacancies listed on NHS jobs, with only 15,004 posts filled. Increased demand on services - The NHS deals with over 1 million patients every 36 hours. Financial deficit - £2.45bn in 2015-16 Lets take the challenges we have talked about, do any of these not involve staff or have an impact of staff? Yet one of the things we also talked about was finances,. As we know our staff are central to this. What do we know specifically about the national costs these challenges are having on the NHS? So if the staff in the NHS were well at work, think about the reductions in cost this would make nationally. This is the national picture, but what does this mean for us locally?

What do these challenges cost the NHS? Sickness absence - The current cost of sickness absence in the NHS is £2.4bn. A reduction in sickness absence by 0.1 per cent across the NHS could save £34,941,722 - the full time equivalent of 1,364 staff. Reasons for leaving – In 2014-15 12,593 staff left the NHS due to ill health, poor work life balance, or incompatible working relationships. Agency spend – The NHS spent an estimated £3.7bn on locum staff in 2015-16 Lets take the challenges we have talked about, do any of these not involve staff or have an impact of staff? Yet one of the things we also talked about was finances,. As we know our staff are central to this. What do we know specifically about the national costs these challenges are having on the NHS? So if the staff in the NHS were well at work, think about the reductions in cost this would make nationally. This is the national picture, but what does this mean for us locally?

What do these challenges cost us? Sickness absence rate - XXX Number and cost of new recruitments – XXX Number of leavers – XXX Proportion of leavers due to ill-health or low morale - XXX Agency spend – XXX Friends and Family test results - XXX Add some descriptive text if necessary. Add your own statistics here – you may want to move this to earlier in the presentation to have a bigger impact What does this say about us as an organisation? Would you want your family to be looked after by our staff? Could our staff wellbeing be better? If it was what would this do to patient care?

What’s the answer? Staff wellbeing is ensuring that staff are provided with an environment and opportunities that enable them to lead healthy lives, leading to better patient outcomes. Better staff engagement Happier and healthier patients Healthier staff Your staff are the key to helping fulfil that purpose of the NHS - helping people to live longer, healthier lives by providing high quality health and care services that are compassionate, inclusive and constantly-improving. Not only are your staff also likely to be service users, when they are engaged and well, they provide better patient outcomes and high quality care.

The benefits The benefits of a healthier workforce to the NHS and to individual trusts are clear: Improved patient safety and experience. Improved staff retention. Reinforced public health and prevention messages - staff are role models to their patients. ‘As the largest employer in Europe, the NHS needs to practice what it preaches by offering better support for the health and wellbeing of our own 1.3 million staff.’ Simon Stevens, 2016

‘Health and wellbeing of NHS staff should no longer be a secondary consideration, but needs to be at the heart of the NHS mission and operational approach’ Dr Steve Boorman, 2009 ‘At a time when arguably the biggest operational challenge facing hospitals is converting overspends on temporary agency staff into attractive flexible permanent posts, creating healthy and supportive workplaces is no longer a nice to have, it’s a must-do.’ Simon Stevens, 2015 Steve Boorman said this back in 2009 in his review of the wellbeing of NHS staff. His report showed the impact of poor staff wellbeing on NHS finances and patient care and so… (Read quote) Health and wellbeing has increased in profile, with the introduction of the new CQUIN and the importance placed on it in the five year forward view. But how can we make this happen?

What’s the answer? ‘Well structured teams, when they have good quality appraisals, good support from their line manager, staff have a role that makes a difference, when they are involved in decision making, when there are lower levels of work pressure, when they have clear job content and get effective feedback on performance’. Professor Michael West, 2014 Some of the answer is here, but what are we going to do?

What do we want staff to say our Board does? What can you do? Develop a good organisational culture Lead the way Engage with staff, what would improve their wellbeing? Invest in your staff What do we want staff to say our Board does? What will you do? So let’s go back to the original question. Core business or cost too much? How do we start with our staff to ensure our patients can the best because our staff can be their best. What do we need to do now to prioritise this and enable our staff to know and feel that we care and we want them to start with themselves to ensure they are then best placed to deliver the best care? As board members we have the opportunity to show our staff that we care about their wellbeing and champion it from the top. This means getting involved in wellbeing initiatives and advocating them for our staff. This can have a significant impact on raising awareness of what the trust has to offer and encouraging our staff to get involved. Evidence shows that organisations with engaged boards and leaders who lead the way in wellbeing have much better wellbeing strategies. If we are to change the culture and sustain it we need to prioritise this and keep it going. What are we going to commit to do now and how do we keep this a priority? Regular agenda item? Start meeting with a staff story?

What are we doing? What more can we do? Insert key points from your local wellbeing strategy here. What more can we do? Insert what you are asking the board to invest in here.

Questions