Leeds Health and Care Academy

About

• Region: Yorkshire and the Humber
• Type of locality: Urban
• Year of launch: 2019
• Academy type: Health and Care Academy
• Funding model: NHS, local authority and external funding
• Key features: Hybrid delivery model (co-design and co-delivery)

Leeds is the second largest local authority district in the UK by population. It has a GDP of approximately £60bn (5 per cent of the UK total) and employs around 60,000 people in the health and social care sector. It also has a diverse and extensive third sector. The city hosts the NHS administration headquarters, the office of NHS Digital, the NHS Leadership Academy and has an extensive health technology and digital health sector.

According to Skills for Care, the adult social care sector in Leeds had 24,500 posts in 2022/23, which comprised of 22,500 filled posts and approximately 2,000 vacancies. The staff turnover rate in Leeds was 34 per cent, with a vacancy rate of 8.8 per cent.

The Leeds Health and Care Academy was launched in 2019, driven by a partnership of further and higher education institutions and the Leeds Academic Health Partnership (LAHP).

The Academy’s mission is to create better integration of the health and social care workforce in Leeds and to develop the regional workforce through collaborative planning, delivery and learning. It has three core principles:

• advancing inclusivity through supporting, connecting and developing a diverse range of people from different health and care organisations
• narrowing inequalities among the regional population and workforce
• optimising the Leeds Pound to ensure value for money and investment in local communities and services.

Learning and development

• provides training and development and aims to advance shared learning
• available to anyone who works in health or social care in Leeds
• accessed by a range of organisations, including third sector and independent providers
• coordinates opportunities for education and experience (including innovative work placements, T Levels, apprenticeships and CPD).

One Workforce Programme

• research and pilot projects to address recruitment, retention, diversity and wellbeing challenges in health and social care (for example Leeds Health and Care Talent Hub)
• works with academic partners to build evidence and create evaluation frameworks
• prioritises underrepresented and disadvantaged groups by deprivation index.

Strategy and planning

• long-term collaborative workforce planning and design
• assesses demographic changes and how these will impact regional service design
• informs and evaluates cross-organisation innovation to build evidence and insight and improve impact.

The Academy is a partnership organisation that operates an integrated service across core funding organisations – the three NHS Trusts in Leeds, the local authority’s Workforce Directorate and the Leeds Integrated Care Board (ICB). The executive directors of these organisations sit on the Academy’s steering group which is co-chaired by the local authority’s Director of Adults and Health and the Workforce Director from Leeds Teaching Hospital. There is also a nominated member board, which includes representatives from third sector organisations, universities, colleges, Leeds City Council and the Leeds Care Association.

The Academy’s work underpins the Leeds Health and Care One Workforce Strategy which has seven priorities:

1. integrated workforce design
2. growing and developing registered healthcare professionals
3. working across organisations
4. preventing ill health
5. narrowing inequalities
6. learning together
7. improving health and wellbeing. 

Within each strategic priority are projects which form the basis of the Leeds Health and Care One Workforce programme of activity. The programme is regularly reviewed and refreshed to ensure it remains reflective of current collaborative priorities. The projects are determined and delivered collectively with partners across the system. The Academy’s delivery model is centred around the co-design and co-delivery of activities. This involves collaboration between participants, professionals, employers, educators and researchers. The ambition is to optimise investment and resource, focus expertise, coordinate activity, and ensure benefits are realised for the whole health and care system. The Academy is hosted by Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, which provides the necessary infrastructure for the team. The team consists of around 25 members of staff, across three main areas. The leadership structure is shown in Figure 2.

Leadership structure of the Leeds Health and Care Academy

Flexibility and agility within the team is key, with a commitment to learning, collaborating, transferring skills and drawing in expertise from across the wider partnership to achieve success.

Developing the Academy’s portfolio of activities and choosing which types of projects and training to deliver is based on the fundamental question: “Is this better done together?”. To assist with collective decision making, every project or learning opportunity is considered against four key questions:

1. Does it clearly underpin one or more of the strategic workforce priorities?
2. Is it transformational or does it create positive and tangible change?
3. Does it significantly benefit Leeds health and social care as a system?
4. Is it founded in shared, cross-boundary learning?

Setting up an academy is a unique journey. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. But there are certain principles that you can apply.”

The Academy has five core funding partners:

• Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LYPFT)
• Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust (LCH)
• West Yorkshire ICS (WY ICS)
• Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT)
• Leeds City Council (LCC)

Funding was initially procured on an annual basis, but this was found not to be feasible for long-term planning and the Academy soon moved to a three-year commission. The Academy also secured external funding, for example from UK Community Renewal Fund, NHS England, charitable funding and research grants. This makes the academy more agile and “that agility is a big success factor.”

In the 2022/23 financial year, the Academy secured £928,000 in external funding, which helped to accelerate progress and amplify impact across priority projects.

The Academy undertakes a range of collaborative projects and initiatives, including:

• education and careers support for young people including collaborative apprenticeship schemes, engaging young people in health and social care, sharing learning resources
• developing core skills in health and social care, for example, ulcer prevention training
• commissioning and procurement of apprenticeships and T levels in health and care related disciplines
• establishing and enhancing digital capabilities, for example, Digital Capabilities Advisory Group, strengthening data apprenticeships and digital workshops
• professional development, for example, self-study packages, e-learning and development initiatives for women
• narrowing inequalities through targeted engagement and intervention, supporting the most disadvantaged by connecting communities to health and care careers
• developing and expanding placement capacity to support the growth of the workforce, ensuring activity is undertaken across a diverse range of settings to reflect future care delivery models
• collaborative workforce planning across the Leeds health and care system using a bespoke methodology, which enables planning across different time periods, and which can account for the needs of all health and care partners.

The I Care … Ambassadors programme is a national initiative that aims to inspire and motivate people to consider a career in health and social care. The I Care…Ambassadors in Leeds are all members of the local health and care workforce. They attend events across the city to talk honestly and openly about what their job involves. Events that Leeds I Care…Ambassadors have attended include recruitment fairs, school careers evenings, virtual classroom Q&A sessions, online networking meetings and student experience days. They also give informal talks and presentations to job seekers and support mock interviews.

This is a collaborative city-wide programme that consists of the following interventions:

• Health and Wellbeing Champion training
• Mental Health First Aid training
• wellbeing retreats
• financial support
• promoting and supporting men’s health.

A Health and Wellbeing Community of Practice (CoP) includes health and wellbeing leads from across the city’s health and social care organisations. The CoP was founded to provide an enduring legacy for the project. It has allowed the Academy to develop health and wellbeing support across organisational boundaries, build on the strengths across the partnership, reduce duplication and deliver efficiencies by connecting existing programmes and relevant expertise. The Health and Wellbeing programme has seen 750 employees across 45 different organisations accessing training and support. In addition, 369 Wellbeing Champions have been trained and inducted across Leeds.

The Healthier Working Futures project aimed to inspire young people (aged 16-25) to consider careers in health and care, supporting them to gain the required experience, knowledge, and opportunities to kick-start their career.

Activities included ‘hands on’ experience days for young people to explore different health and care roles, qualifications and training (for example, Mental Health First Aid) and one-to-one support with job applications.

A range of resources were produced, such as lesson plans and case studies of health and care careers that practitioners can use when working with young people. In addition, 961 young people were engaged through careers events, 1-1 support and qualifications as a result of the project. The learning from this and other programmes has helped shape the city’s approach to narrowing inequalities. A rolling programme of bespoke targeted programmes is now embedded into the Leeds Health and Care Talent Hub.

The Connecting Communities with Health and Care Careers programme involved a partnership approach to provide careers within disadvantaged or underrepresented communities in Leeds. It aimed to remove traditional barriers to recruitment and employment, providing person-centred practical support to help people achieve their potential. The programme ran between January and July 2022, during which time:

• 850+ expressions of interest were received
• 211 people were supported through education, training and employment
• 130 conditional offers of employment were made
• 131 accredited qualifications were gained
• 51 people attended Careers in Care courses
• 90 per cent of those who were supported received a conditional offer of employment
• 95 per cent of those supported into employment remained employed after 12 months. The programme has now been embedded into the Leeds Health and Care Talent Hub. This provides a sustainable approach to narrowing inequalities through connecting communities into education and training, volunteering, work experience, and careers.

The Leeds Health and Care Academy has a strong focus on encouraging and enabling staff to work more effectively together across organisational and professional boundaries. The aim is to create a positive environment for problem solving, innovation and alignment of activity. This includes a collaborative approach to workforce planning to improve shared capacity to address challenges and opportunities more effectively. The Academy is particularly focused on creating links between health, social care and academia to address future workforce needs.

Avoiding duplication by working across organisational boundaries, streamlining processes, and connecting existing programmes with relevant expertise has been important to the success of the Academy.

Defining what success looks like for all partners was crucial during the implementation phase for the Academy. Four indicators of success were identified to measure impact. These are accelerating progress, improving quality, driving efficiency and amplifying impact.

We asked ourselves what success looks like for us collectively.”

By developing an approach and a framework for measuring and evaluating impact, the Academy has been able to demonstrate added value, attract additional funding and investment and identify examples of good practice for future delivery. This includes evidence-based implementation and delivery, for example through external evaluations and economic predictions.

In addition, the Academy was designed with a clear mission statement and external consultants were commissioned to ensure the associated aims and objectives were realistic and affordable.

We stuck by our mission statement and didn’t try to do everything.”

Having a sustainable funding model, with multiple funding streams, also enables the Academy to be more agile and responsive to changing needs and project requirements.

Co-designing the approach means that the dynamically evolving pressures, challenges and needs of all partners need to be considered. The delivery model involves a range of different organisations and managing these relationships comes with challenges. Time needs to be allowed for listening, facilitating, advocating, enabling and mediating.

Don’t underestimate the amount of relationship building you’ll have to do. You always have to be on it and consistently invest in the partnership relationships.”

In addition, there is a need to prioritise those programmes and services that will make the biggest difference. Given the Academy’s involvement in a range of different projects and initiatives, it has been necessary to assess the relative importance of each activity and focus on longer term priorities, so as to not dilute the Academy’s impact.

The Academy has demonstrated considerable achievements across its four indicators.

Accelerating progress – The Academy has streamlined resources, helping to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy. They have helped to remove traditional barriers to health and care recruitment via the Connecting Communities with Health and Care Careers programme and by filling hard-to-fill vacancies and business-critical roles.

Improving quality – The Academy has accessed expert advice and guidance to ensure initiatives and projects are evidence-based and linked to tangible outcomes and impact. A collaborative approach to workforce planning has enabled the Academy to become more resource-efficient and better address challenges and opportunities. The Academy’s work has also been featured in major publications and presentations, including the International Journal of Health Promotion and Education and a Health Education England Allied Health Professional Workforce Planning Insights report.

Driving efficiency – The Academy has streamlined commissioning and procurement processes, which has allowed it to amplify impact by becoming more resource efficient. This has helped to enhance the learning offer available across the organisations employing the Academy’s learners and enabled organisational resources to be directed elsewhere. The website streamlines access to learning, careers, and collaborative opportunities.

Amplifying impact – Where the Academy has identified good practice, for example through successful training programmes, it has been translated into different contexts across the sector. For example, the Academy’s wound care training materials were adapted so that they could be applied more widely across care home and home care settings, not just clinical settings. Facilitating online, citywide development via the Leeds Health and Care Learning Portal has allowed the Academy to reach a higher portion of the workforce and more diverse learners. The collaborative approach and ability to work at scale resulted in external funding of £928k over 2022/23.

Example of learning taken back to the organisation

One of the Academy’s Data Analyst apprentices, employed by Healthwatch, used the skills and networks she acquired through the programme to introduce new systems and approaches to data collection and reporting. This resulted in a more responsive service and delivered improvements in partnership working with other organisations.

Example of translating expertise from one part of the system into wider settings and contexts

Two years ago, health and care partners in Leeds came together to explore best practice around Pressure Ulcer Prevention and as a result, developed an e-learning programme to share across Local Authority, NHS and independent care services. The success of this approach led to the development of further learning packages focused on the person rather than organisations, to strengthen consistency of care in areas such as wound care and dysphasia (choking). Increasing access to this cross-sector training from smaller employers such as Care Home providers in Leeds has been highly encouraging.

Website: Leeds Health and Care Academy

Contact: [email protected]

Leeds Health and Care Academy: Annual Report 2023/24