Workforce Planning
Changes within the NHS in terms of care settings, demographics and delivery methods require significantly different skills, capabilities and approaches to working. This requires careful planning to ensure that a sufficiently skilled workforce is in place to respond to these changes.
Workforce planning aims to ensure organisations strategically plan to have sufficient clinical and non-clinical staff, with the appropriate skills, to meet the current and future needs of their population. Effective workforce planning ensures appropriate levels of staff are available to deliver safe, high-quality care to patients and service users.
Developed in partnership with Skills for Health, this digital resource toolkit has been created exclusively for North Central London Training Hub and our primary care workforce. It brings together a curated collection of practical tools, data sources, primary-care–focused case studies, templates and guidance to support workforce planning, service development and day-to-day improvement activity. The toolkit is designed to make it easier for practices and PCNs to access trusted, high-quality resources in one place and to apply them directly to local priorities.
The password to access the link below is workforcePL4NNING.1
NCL Training Hub has developed a short document, providing Primary Care Networks (PCNs) and General Practices in North Central London with information about workforce planning and basic guidance for what to focus on and which questions to ask as part of the planning.
We recognise that each PCN and General Practice is different, and the steps recommended in this guidance may not be the answer you are looking for when planning your workforce. You can, of course, seek further help and support from your local borough training hub during your workforce planning.
Workforce planning should ideally not be an exercise that is carried out by a person on their own. It should engage and involve the whole of your practice or PCN, with members of different roles within the workforce contributing to it. The information needed to produce a useful workforce plan should be held within your workforce.
The NHS 10-Year Plan sets out a long-term vision for creating a health service that is modern, sustainable and better equipped to meet the changing needs of the population. It outlines key priorities for reform — including a shift towards prevention, more care delivered in the community, greater use of digital tools, and a workforce model designed for the future. The Plan is intended to guide national and local decision-making over the next decade, and provides useful context for workforce planning across primary care.
We have included links to both the full Plan and the executive summary so you can explore the detail and consider how the proposals may impact workforce shaping, service models and future skills needs within your practice or PCN.
NHS England and NHS Employers have launched a new international retention toolkit which outlines actions employers can take to ensure internationally recruited colleagues can stay, thrive and build lasting careers in the NHS. The toolkit, designed for line managers and employers, brings information, best practice examples and resources together in one place and highlights what organisation, systems and regions are already doing to create the conditions for all international staff to thrive in the NHS.
Alongside the toolkit, the joint NHS England and NHS Employers’ Improving Staff Retention Guide is designed to help support the overall approach to recruiting and retaining international and domestic staff.
The Fuller Stocktake Report was commissioned by NHS England and provides a national review of integrated primary care—examining what is working well, why it is working well, and how systems can accelerate the move towards more joined-up, proactive and personalised care. The report sets out a clear vision for how primary care, community services and wider partners can work together through integrated neighbourhood teams to improve access, continuity and population health outcomes.