Workforce redesign

Integrated workforce planning and development, based on the needs and assets of the community, and supporting multi-disciplinary approaches.

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Definitions

  • An integrated workforce does not necessarily mean new job descriptions, more it means developing new ways of working that support people holistically, building resilience and independence
  • It means developing the existing workforce to adapt, rather than focusing only on recruiting and training new workers.

New roles

Some of the most common new roles in an integration context are:

  • Care coordinators or navigators coordinating care across health and social care, often connecting people with local services or community networks
  • Community facilitators / enablers / link workers provide a practical interface between services and the wider community 
  • Health Coaches support and empower individuals to take an active role in managing their health and in their engagement with services.

Team approaches

  • Multidisciplinary or Multiagency working means bringing together into one team workers from different professions, often around a single geography or to support a specific group of patients
  • Proactive care means identifying people's health and care needs, and providing in a preventative and community based way, making sure that people, often those with complex needs, get the support that they need, at the right time and in the best place
  • Person-centred care services and the system are designed around the individual and the outcomes important to them, and developed with people who use or provide services and their communities
  • Asset-based approaches draw on the assets and resources available to an individual, their close network or the community, for example Social Prescribing and to an area, for example Asset-based Community Development (ABCD).

Frequently asked questions

What should a joint workforce strategy across the health and care system include?

  • The workforce in its widest sense, both formal and informal
  • Workforce planning based on the needs of the  population, now and predicted into the future
  • Workforce development, investing in the skills, behaviours and roles to support new ways of working
  • Recruitment and retention, ensuring capacity to meet the population's needs.

What does an integrated workforce look like?

  • Jobs are designed around their impact on health and wellbeing outcomes and on improving people's experience of care
  • Practitioners across health and care disciplines work seamlessly together to achieve best outcomes
  • There is an acknowledgement of how integration will affect people's roles and professional identities
  • There is investment in changing skills and behaviours so that the workforce reflects the systems vision of person-centred and coordinated care.

What does workforce planning involve?

  • It involves agreeing your workforce objectives, mapping the existing workforce against this, developing strategies to achieve aims, and wide communication engage the workforce
  • Common tools include online resources, such as WRaPT or WSP, see below, or scenario planning, where stakeholders work together to define the workforce needed for the future, see Skills for Health.

What are some of the key issues in developing an integrated workforce?

  • supporting workers to cope with changing professional and organisational identities, and new ways of working including employing person-centred, preventative, proactive care
  • understanding what changes in roles, numbers and ways of working are necessary to meet future needs, and mapping the transition
  • workforce shortages or challenges in recruiting and retaining workers
  • investment in skills to meet the needs of new ways of working
  • management accountability and oversight of staff who do not fit into established structures.

Terms and conditions vary for similar jobs in different sectors or organisations.

Case studies and examples

LGA support and resources

  • 21st Century Public Servant a book and podcast bringing more life to the idea that 21st century public servants have a range of new roles to play in the places they serve

The following resources are available to LGA workforce subscribers. You can sign up here

  • National Joint Council (NJC) job evaluation on the topic of ensuring that new jobs fit properly into organisational structures, here are an expanding range of resources explaining the proper use of job evaluation, including sample role profiles.
  • Public Health transfer is the most concrete example of integration so far. These resources include the set of sample role profiles that were produced to help with the transfer of Public Health staff to local government.

Selected tools and resources from our partners

Highlighted pages

Integration resource library