Well, 1 1 1 has grown from the concept in 2010. We launched four pilots. Went out on
the stage where 16 million people a year are calling; 1 1 1 is that principle route into
Urgent Care Services. But the key component for all of this is our workforce. Clearly
without a trained and skilled workforce that we can retain and reward appropriately, we
just do not have a good 1 1 1 service.
A motivated workforce has been vital. One of the criticisms for 1 1 1 in the past is
that we've recruited a relatively junior staff, but now we've got a career path that's described
for people that can come in as a call handler, but may have aspirations to progress onwards
even into clinical roles.
I've progressed from being a call advisor. I think it's massively important for the call
advisors to progress and to sort of develop in their own role as well. A call advisor
can be quiet sometimes. You take a call, then you take the next call and you take the next
call, and it's quite nice for the call advisor sometimes to have that time offline when they
can come off the phone, where they can sort of develop new skills, like for an SCA, or
they can coach somebody, like new start, or something like that. So it's good for them,
because it sort of mixes is up a bit for them as well.
I think recruitment and retention are two fundamental issues for the integrated urgent
care system. I think the workforce blueprint really help us in terms of improving our recruitment
and retention. It provides people with a really clear framework for where they might sit,
whether that be in a clinical role or in a non-clinical role, right the way from band
2 up to band 9. So I think it provides a real depiction of the employment opportunities
available to people, and gives them a vision for the future in terms of how they might
develop their careers.
It's to ensure that all of our work force across the system has access to the right
training and the right development at the right time, to ensure that we have an integrated,
multi-professional workforce capable of responding to the needs of an evolving ageing patient
population. For our program in particular, with urgent emergency care, what we're looking
at is pathways, so truly defined development pathways with staged entry and exit points,
that recognise the need to progress the career of a clinician, but at the same time respond
to workforce need. So there is a balance between what the individual wants in terms of their
aspirations and their own personal development needs, and what the workforce needs from them.
Things change quickly in this role, so-be-it. If you start off as a call taker, if you're
doing well in that role, I think we, as an organisation, are very keen for you to then
pass on those skills and perhaps have someone sat with you and perhaps do a bit of coaching
with them. If you're displaying the right attitudes and you're performing well, there's
a kind of responsibility on the individual who's looking to get involved in that to kind
of put themselves forward to do it. I think there's always room to develop within that
role.
The workforce are just like members of the public, they've got holistic needs. You have
to think about their career development, their professional education, feedback and development,
but also their mental health and well-being. The workforce briefing provides all of these
things in one package to help guide providers supported by commissioners, in getting everything
in place to support that most effective workforce, who in turn can support the callers and the
patients presenting to the 1 1 1 telephone number.
That suite of documents really gives the provider all the information that they need to go out
and hire the right sort of staff, to train them and develop them in the right kind of
way. So we're starting to see changes already. And having this more diverse skill mix allows
us to make sure that patients are getting the right sort of care from the most appropriate
individual, but also in a cost-effective manner.
I can take information that I obtain from different levels and different services, and
I can look at how we can improve things, I can speak to the different staff, and then
I can take those opinions and those ideas to senior managers to be able to look at improving
things. Everyone's welfare's looked after. Everyone feels like they are recognised for
the different skills that they perform every day. It helps to ensure that they feel safe
at work, they feel safe providing the care to the patients, and that everyone's happy
with what they do.
We look to the blueprint, and we look at how that fits with our strategic vision for integrated
urgent care across the region, and use it for the framework for non-clinical and clinical
development. We've got to absolutely utilise our workforce and their skills across the
system, and break down some of these organisational and clinical barriers around how we work.
Cradle to grave, I know it's a mantra at the NHS, but that's what the IUC Clinical Assessment
has to be available to respond to people from all walk of life, all ages, all backgrounds.
So it's really important that we have the right workforce, the right skill mix. A multi-disciplinary
team within that clinical assessment service, to support patients who call 1 1 1 with urgent
care problems.