The Levelling Up agenda’s targets for health and social care are clear and the government’s Health and Care Act 2022 means well in its creation of Integrated Care Services [ICSs]. However, with the sector in crisis, a new approach is needed to ensure we remain on track to accomplish the industry’s levelling up missions. This needs to place patients, service users and staff, and their wellbeing, at its centre.
Problems within the NHS, including record waiting lists, excessive bed-blocking, significant staff shortages and industrial action, are well documented. The health service is underfunded and under-resourced and its workforce burnt out. There is little consideration for the wellbeing of staff filtering down from its leadership. This is nothing new, the ‘doom loop’ of cuts to staff and budgets amid heightened demand and workforce pressures has been happening for many years.
Nurses are going on strike, and it’s not just about low pay.
While the NHS struggles, there is also a deep and personal issue affecting workers in social care. A major crisis around the perception of care workers and their status compared to NHS staff and other roles in society has emerged. This issue is eroding any desire to join, to stay or to progress in the care profession. Add low remuneration and the immense stress and pressures of the role into the mix and it all adds up to an exodus of staff.
Amid current economic turbulence, it will be a challenge to bring about sustainable growth while addressing the crisis in health and social care.
With time not on our side and effective decisions desperately needed, we at Flexicare UK, The WoWW! Business and The Centre for Practical Innovation in Care have devised a joint solution in the form of the ‘Levelling Up + Down Wellbeing + Care Campaign.’
If we are to level up wellbeing within health and social care, the approach needs to focus on prevention over cure to achieve real change. Our campaign is built around the NHS Confederation’s own ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ and our four ‘Ps’: ‘platform, progress, promotion, and place,’ both virtual and in reality.
Our campaign and framework of ‘Virtual + Real Centres of Care and Wellbeing Excellence’ will be delivered through our system of ‘hybrid hubs and hublets’. This has been devised by Flexicare UK in Gloucester and Stroud and holds ‘Outstanding’ status from the Care Quality Commission. As a cloud based solution, it can be implemented and scaled up quickly and can create sustainable and green employment opportunities within a digitalised health and social care system to further boost the Levelling Up agenda.
We are in the process of beta testing our campaign in Gloucestershire in the hope of achieving a model that will not simply deliver Integrated Care Services, but Integrated Care and Wellbeing Services across the whole of the UK.
Our solution will allow employers and employees to benchmark their organisations on wellbeing. However, the government needs to recognise that levelling up in health and social care will depend on staff mental health and wellbeing. The scourge of ‘un-wellbeing’ within the health and social care workforce is not a case of regional disparity either. It is endemic and a nationwide solution such as ours is needed to address it now.
Key Points:
• The wellbeing of patients, clients and health & social care staff must all be at the centre of plans to level up the sector.
• The Health and Care Act 2022 is great in principle, but execution is key.
• Solutions focused on wellbeing, which connect positive thinking to tangible action, are needed and we are making progress in this area.
This article originally appeared in The Leaders Council’s special report on ‘The Levelling Up agenda’, published on November 30, 2022. Read the full special report here.
Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash
