WORKFORCE PLANNING


Work’. He explained that, as part of IHEEM’s commitment to support its members’ professional development, and ‘address the membership balance’, the Institute was keen to see apprentice programmes for healthcare engineering and estates personnel flourish, and to recruit and develop healthcare engineers and healthcare estates and facilities professionals who would be ‘future leaders’. He noted that IHEEM is already engaging with tradesmen and technicians, and is also committed to a drive to encourage stronger involvement from women within IHEEM. He added: “All of us – at NHSI, the professional bodies, and those in NHS estates and facilities roles, need to ensure that we create really good opportunities for apprentices in the future. If we don’t, nobody else will. We must come together across the sector as a collective if we are to really effectively address the succession planning issue. “During my IHEEM Presidency I have spent considerable time meeting and talking to apprentices, and to those considering taking apprentices on, I would urge you: ‘Don’t think twice’. There are some excellent and extremely talented potential apprentice recruits out there, whose enthusiasm and commitment we will be badly letting down if we do not harness.”


A central element of IHEEM’s short-to- medium term strategy is working closely with other organisations with similar aims. Last October the Institute formed with HefmA (the Health Estates & Facilities Management Association) a new jointly owned, not-for-profit company, HBE Ltd. The two organisations said on its launch that HBE brought together the professional expertise of both IHEEM and HefmA, which between them, represented ‘every skillset and knowledge base relevant to the operation of healthcare estates and facilities’. They said: “HBE has the capability to potentially engage in a number of activities, including providing a resource of technical expertise, guidance, policies, and procedures, future planning, and training and development. With a broad membership base of EFM professionals across the two organisations, activities will be tailored to the needs of the members.”


HefmA work


HefmA is itself putting a considerable focus on succession planning, and indeed, speaking at the ‘Workforce Planning’ event, its President, Tim Litherland, described ‘Workforce sustainability’ as ‘arguably the greatest risk the NHS is facing, in terms not just of people, but also skills’. Arguing that ‘future technology trends necessitate a continuous commitment to training’, he also cited the potential impact of Brexit, ‘and other demographic impacts’, on recruitment,


and wondered whether young people were, in fact, ‘interested in FM disciplines’. Briefly detailing HefmA’s response to these issues, and in particular skills shortages, Tim Litherland said the Association was already ‘developing key partnerships with like-minded organisations’, ‘sharing combined knowledge and experience for the future’, and ‘working on initiatives with various training bodies to help develop the skills of our membership’. HefmA is also in the process of producing and sharing a coaching and mentoring register.


Other key goals


He added: “Other priorities for us include developing a common apprenticeship training package, creating and developing CPD programmes to assist members with career progression, strengthening links to academia, reinforcing succession planning for EFM professionals, and supporting NHSI to develop an FM workforce strategy.”


One of the more common historical routes for new entrants to the profession – particularly in the past – was apprenticeships, which the Government and the professional institutions are keen to see a resurgence in. One of the most successful, and equally one of the longest- running, NHS healthcare estates and healthcare engineering apprenticeships has been running in the north-east of England since 1974, when the Northern and Yorkshire NHS Assessment Centre began operating – based on principles outlined in DHSS Memorandum HM (72/21) – at the instigation of one of IHEEM’s Past-Presidents, Bill Murray OBE, a former CEO of South Tees Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.


As Eileen Bayles, Regional Training & Development Manager of the Northern and Yorkshire NHS Assessment Centre (NYNHSAC) explained (Eileen was among


those awarded Honorary IHEEM Fellowship last year) in an article in the September 2015 HEJ, up until the early 1970s, senior hospital engineers tended to recruit or train engineering craft apprentices ad hoc to meet particular needs. However the training was generally not formalised, or necessarily undertaken to recognised standards. In the early 1970s, recognising the need for NHS engineering apprentices to receive more ‘standardised’ training, the Government established various working parties to formulate training programmes based on a network of regional ‘hubs’. In 1973-1974, one such training hub to be formed was the Northern & Yorkshire NHS Assessment Centre, which is still operating highly successfully today.


Successful work in the north-east Bringing things up to date in a presentation titled ‘How the North East is Delivering NHS Engineering Apprenticeships’, Eileen Bayles proudly explained that since the Centre’s establishment, 96 per cent of apprentices recruited had completed their training and ‘amalgamated into a Trust’, with about a quarter advancing to senior posts, including ‘Director’. An evaluation in 2014 showed that ‘two-thirds’ were still in, or had returned to, the NHS. The apprenticeship scheme’s goals today remain the same as on its foundation – to recruit and train estates apprentices in the occupational areas of Medical Engineering, Multi-skilled Engineering, Electrical, Mechanical, Carpentry, Joinery, and Plumbing.


Among the Centre’s funders today are Health Education England (North East), the Education & Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), the Apprenticeship Levy, NHS Trusts, and other NHS organisations, and various ‘private funding’ sources. Eileen Bayles explained how the current scheme operates: “Bids for places at the Centre, and on the apprenticeships it coordinates. are received from Trusts, after which the Centre’s Management Review Group meets to review the bids and allocate places. We then agree with the successful Trusts on the exact training required for their ‘batch’ of apprentices, place advertisements, and then, based on the responses received, shortlist candidates for interview, before interviewing, and then appointing a number of candidates to an apprenticeship.”


HefmA president, Tim Litherland, described ‘Workforce sustainability’ as ‘arguably the greatest risk the NHS is facing, in terms not just of people, but also skills’.


Specialist training element The apprenticeships generally last between three and a half and four years, during which apprentices receive not only a through training in their particular field, leading to an Advanced Apprenticeship in Engineering qualification, but may also, at the employing Trust and the Centre’s discretion, undertake specialist courses.


June 2018 Health Estate Journal 27


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