This first workforce strategy is being developed by Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) and us, supported by the Institute of Public Care at Oxford Brookes University. Since January 2019, we have engaged with more than 1,000 people to help us develop this consultation document.
We now want to hear your views about the themes and actions that have been developed as part of that engagement before a strategy is finalised in time to be launched next year.
It follows the publication of A Healthier Wales, the Welsh Government’s long-term vision for health and social care. This responded to a Parliamentary Review of health and social care in Wales, which published its findings in January 2018.
The ambition of A Healthier Wales is for the health and social care systems to work together so that people using them won’t notice when services are provided by different organisations. A seamless system of health and social care will need a workforce that provides the best care, irrespective of who they are employed by and where they are based.
This has led the Welsh Government to commission HEIW and us to develop a long-term workforce strategy in partnership with the NHS and local government, the voluntary and independent sectors as well as regulators, professional bodies and education providers.
The workforce strategy is an opportunity to change the conversation – to understand what matters to the workforce as they provide care and support to our population – as much as what matters to the people they care for. We know this is critical if we are to provide excellent care.