Dr. Abeyna Bubbers-Jones

Working with the agency in the NHS offers a flexible way to collaborate across teams; however, this setup can become problematic when the agency staff income relies on those teams. As a result, agency staff may hesitate to speak up or could be exploited in allocation decisions. Conversely, there are instances where agency workers contribute to a toxic work environment as they perceive permanent staff as a threat with income-related pressures to encourage them to leave. It’s crucial to recognise these complexities and understand the role of management. Do they have a vested interest in retaining agency (nursing) staff who are less likely to voice complaints or escalate issues? #PsychologicalSafety #OurNHSPeople #Management #Nursing

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How can you effectively workforce plan in the NHS when you do not have all of the information that you need? The short answer is your can't. F_rstly t_ und_rst_nd yo_r cap_c_ty y_u r_ally n_ed to ha_e all of t_e d_ta, a_y hol_s or mi_sing info_mation wi_l n_t prov_de you with the f_ll p_ctur_. Secondly, you then need clear demand data such as: ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................ Effective workforce planning is only possible if you have all the information you need: understanding your capacity and how it measures up against the demands of each service. Surface-level data is insufficient. For example, if the demand for the service is 123 PAs per week and your capacity also shows 123 PAs per week, it might seem fine. But what if 10 PAs are over-subscribed in Theatre and 10 PAs are under-subscribed in Clinics? The total number of PAs matches, but not in the right way. This misalignment means you’re potentially paying staff for surgeries that don’t happen whilst at the same time spending contingency money on agency staff to support your clinics. I don't need to tell you that this all adds up. Equally the problem may be invisible to you if the surface data says everything is fine. What you need is forensic-level analysis that provides complete information and a meaningful gap analysis. Anything less will give you an inaccurate picture and could cost you budget you do not have. How effectively do you workforce plan in your trust? does it have an impact on how your services run? I would love to hear stories. #NHS #Workforceplanning #CapacityandDemand

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🌍 New Report Alert: Fixing General Practice in the NHS The British Medical Association has released a new report, Patients First: Why General Practice is Broken & How We Can Fix It, addressing the mounting challenges faced by general practice in the NHS. 📉 It's key findings reveal: - Severe underfunding of GP practices, with 2,000 closures since 2010. - Fewer GPs managing an increased number of patients, resulting in access issues. - The loss of continuity of care, which is vital for patient outcomes. The report outlines immediate, medium, and long-term solutions, including: - Immediate actions to retain GPs and prevent further closures. - A new GP contract that increases funding and supports continuity of care. - A long-term vision for a GP-led, community-focused, preventative healthcare model. This report is a call for bold investment in general practice to ensure patients receive the care they deserve and to secure the future of the NHS. I'm curious to know what my NHS and General Practice based connections think of the report and it's recommendations 🏥 #NHS #GeneralPractice #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #GP

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Why is it that many midwives believe - incorrectly - that those who are not working in NHS clinical midwifery are not practising midwives? 🤔 This disregard for non-NHS clinical midwives spans the profession. At the recent RCM conference, I overheard a midwife joke about a colleague "going over to the dark side" into teaching. When I left my university lecturer role to set up Expectancy, some colleagues wished me well "on my retirement," despite knowing I was about to work harder than ever. Many midwives move into independent practice, offering complementary therapies, antenatal education, lactation support, or tongue-tie division. Maternity care is evolving. Midwives deserve choices in their work, too. The NHS doesn't own you, and charging for professional services is not a crime. Let's respect ALL midwifery colleagues, regardless of where and how they choose to work. Read my latest blog post to explore this issue in more depth - https://lnkd.in/eQfXfM_8 #MidwiferyMatters #MidwifeLife #RespectAllMidwives

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Many people f**k up freedom of information requests and p**s off the NHS. Around ten years ago I watched and wrote some helpful guidance for NHS commissioners when dealing with FOIs from pharma. The CCG teams were not happy. They were overwhelmed with requests on all kinds of things, and it was usually bloody obvious who was making the request. BUT The commissioners were public, tax-payer funded bodies who often refused to take meetings, and were not inclined to share information. So they created the conditions that kind of forced the companies to do it... ... thus pissing them off. FOI requests are very useful, but DON'T BE A ROOKIE! This Wednesday I'm running a session that will cover how and where to get intel from the NHS, that helps you to engage with the NHS in the right kind of way. The 90m session will be covering.... Freedom of Information Act-ing 📩🎭 Public document trawling 📄🌐 (special guest Phil Evans) Data and information source-ing 📊📈 Commissioner workshop fishing 🐟🦞 Research project-ing 🔎🔬 Link in comments. Tell a friend.

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Ive not read all of the Dash reprt but the overall recommendations make very interesting reading https://lnkd.in/eBnM-Wxr. Conclusion 3: delays in producing reports and poor-quality reports... the ridiculous delay in completing reports is a nonsense that is driven by total inefficiency and it leaves care providers with a vacuum in which they can't really move forward , address the alleged identified issues, impacts negatively on the provider's marketing and PR and potentially the ability to fill beds Conclusion 4: loss of credibility within the health and care sectors due to the loss of sector expertise and wider restructuring, resulting in lost opportunities for improvement.... CQC has had little credibility due exactly to this problem. Frankly my experience is that some of the inspectors suffer from delusions of grandeur which appears to negatively affect their ( poor) judgement and they don t appear to be actually that bright Conclusion 9: CQC could do more to support improvements in quality across the health and care sector. Providers with challenges need intelligent ,experienced healthcare inspectors that are willing to help and not judge . This has been missing for far too long. If CQC eat a little humble pie and take note of the recommendations we may have an improved regulator..I say may

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This week’s share is the Care Quality Commission's report on maternity services (https://lnkd.in/eJvspZRp). It builds on previous reports in 2020 and 2022, shining a further spotlight on the state of maternity care today. This subject matters really deeply to me: I was privileged to be an obstetric anaesthetist for twenty years, and counselled numerous women who had experienced poor care which was impacting their decision making about how (and in some cases if ) they should give birth in the future, and their stories shaped my practice. The report makes difficult reading. It’s not describing anything new, and there is good progress in some areas, but overall the pace of change is slow. Today, no English maternity service is rated as outstanding, and two thirds ‘require improvement’ or worse. It describes that, in some units, poor care has become normalised, with incidents under-reported. This misses the opportunity to learn and institute training. Alongside this is a normalisation of potentially serious incidents when these have been managed effectively, not asking if the whole event was avoidable. Birth can still be psychologically very traumatic even when care is safe. This contributes to the long term impact giving birth can have on mental health even when physical trauma has resolved. The report states that 4 to 5% of women develop PTSD as a result of giving birth a year. I did the maths, and that’s 25 to 30 000 women a year. Other areas of focus include lack of consistent triage, poor data, estates that don’t support delivering safe care, communication challenges both with clients and between staff, and deep seated health inequalities. Addressing these issues is hard, and made harder by the long standing staffing challenges in maternity services. Shortages, and the pressure staff feel under to go the extra mile contribute to risking sickness rates and retention challenges that perpetuate the cycle. And care needs are getting more complex, with rising rates of obesity and other medical conditions and a continuing rise in the proportion of babies born by caesarean section. At CF I’ve worked with a number of systems and ICBs to set out the specific challenges faced by local maternity services, develop care models that tackle these, set a strategic direction for the future, and prioritise what needs to be done to deliver this. I’m invariably blown away by the passion and commitment of staff to deliver better care, their willingness to work in partnership across systems to do so, and to combine their knowledge with the data to develop compelling solutions. My fervent hope is that more systems set out the transformation of maternity services needed to deliver the care women and families deserve, and that the NHS 10 year plan when it comes enables delivery. Thoughts welcome, and if you’d like to talk about any of this, message me… #NHS #maternitycare

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How can we make sure that people have better experiences when interacting with health systems? The main message coming through from these recommendations is how important good communication is during the health journey. #RuralHealth #RuralHealthCareers #RuralCommunitites #HealthEquity #HealthJourney

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Attended the last Primary Care Community of Practice meeting as CRN North West Coast before the merger to become the RRDN North West this week. Good meeting and nice to meet in person rather than Teams. Some interesting conversations and good that the NHS is getting keener on commercial research (which we have been doing for 15 years). There were some strategic talks but also some conversations about operational matters. The number of websites you have to log on to often several for each study and the usual nightmare of passwords and usernames all with different requirements came up from several people. It strikes me that given the NHS is adopting the study onto its portfolio and providing support to get it going shouldn't we be insisting that as part of adoption their tools need to integate/interface with ours? Why can't they use SmartCard or NHS mail Login authentication? So I can single sign on? A lot of websites are now using passkeys? is there some way of me being authenticated on a nhs network that would prove to one of these sites who I am? EMIS have just upgraded their security - I know Gateway uses Smartcard authentication so its possible for third parties to use these - I know some have had issues with using Windows Logins. Thoughts?

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The NHS is experiencing a significant loss of staff, which is detrimental to its operations both physically and financially. In fact, NHS staff vacancies reports a vacancy rate at the end of December 2023 of 8.4%. Therefore, it is crucial for them to adopt software solutions that can enhance both clinical and administrative processes. By enabling staff members to concentrate on their responsibilities, many of the challenges they face can be alleviated. This will result in a more balanced workload, leading to happier staff, stronger colleague relationships, and a more harmonious work environment. Read more about maintaining staff retention: https://ow.ly/ZU2r50SmYmy #AccessSupport #NHS #StaffRetention #NHSEngland #Wellbeing

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The NHS is experiencing a significant loss of staff, which is detrimental to its operations both physically and financially. In fact, NHS staff vacancies reports a vacancy rate at the end of December 2023 of 8.4%. Therefore, it is crucial for them to adopt software solutions that can enhance both clinical and administrative processes. By enabling staff members to concentrate on their responsibilities, many of the challenges they face can be alleviated. This will result in a more balanced workload, leading to happier staff, stronger colleague relationships, and a more harmonious work environment. Read more about maintaining staff retention: https://ow.ly/e7MW50T8jEG #AccessSupport #NHS #StaffRetention #NHSEngland #Wellbeing

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👩‍⚕️ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐎𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐇𝐒: 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐍𝐇𝐒 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝 🏥 Today at GIANT Health Event I enjoyed the fireside chat where health policy analyst Roy Lilley interviewed Richard Meddings, the chair of NHS England. Hugely popular session, standing room only! Here are some of the highlights: 🌍 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞, 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞, 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞! 👉The healthcare workforce shortage is not just a UK issue. Nations are competing for talent, making recruitment increasingly difficult. 👉Upskilling allied health professionals (AHPs) and expanding training pathways is vital. 👉While long-term workforce plans are necessary, they’re only one part of the picture. 📱 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 🔸NHS App: This is evolving into a powerful hub, but integration with legacy systems remains a challenge. Progress has been made, with 44,000 healthcare systems moved to the cloud—more work still needed. (https://lnkd.in/eEgUP3ZW) 🔸Federated Data Platforms: Tools like Palantir are providing a “translation layer” to unify data across institutions, ensuring interoperability and analytics potential (https://lnkd.in/eakTYhu5) 🔸NHS Number: This universal identifier could hold the key to connecting health records into insights on economics, habits, and preventative care. 🔸AI in Action: From ophthalmology to breast screening, AI is already helping diagnostics. Ambient documentation pilots (voice-to-text tech) are also underway, promising significant time savings for clinicians. 🏥 𝐕𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬: 𝐀 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲? 🔸With 95,000 hospital beds operating at 97% capacity, virtual wards are a key strategy for tackling overcrowding. 🔸Over-65s make up 25% of the population but drive 50% of hospital admissions and 74% of bed occupancy. 🔸Proactive virtual care for conditions like UTIs could reduce unnecessary admissions and free up critical capacity. 🚀 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 🔹NHS Priorities: Digital, prevention, and community-based care will be central to the long-term plan (https://lnkd.in/e2XVyXaa) 🔹Exponential Innovation: We’re achieving what seemed impossible five years ago, and the pace of change is accelerating. 🔹Focus on Fewer Initiatives: To drive real breakthroughs, the NHS must concentrate resources on core strategies, avoiding the risks of fragmented funding. 🔮 𝐋𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 Richard Meddings offered a hopeful outlook for the NHS five years from now. Despite exponential demand and structural pressures, innovation holds the key to transformation. He ends by stating the vision of a health system that is free and accessible remains worth fighting for!

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Really important discussion point, training is absolutely crucial but it needs to be meaningful and relevant to the roles of the staff. The move towards eLearning has diluted the importance of MCA in everyday life. It is often just seen as a compliance target to be achieved. It is everyone business to understand the core components of MCA. I recently delivered a series of sessions for a large NHS trust and received excellent feedback and how it had supported staff to think differently and feel more confident in assessing patients and embedding the principles in day to day practice. One person stated "I was really scared of MCA and you have made it come alive and feel more part of my job" It is worrying the lack of knowledge in relation to consent and who has decision making powers. I do agree case study learning which is reflective and relevant is crucial to upskill staff and ensure that MCA is front and centre in all health related roles. I do deliver MCA training and if anyone is interested my contact details are [email protected]

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Integrated Care Boards are being tasked with a critical role in using data and insights to enhance decision-making, detect early warning signs, and improve outcomes across health and care systems. NHS England’s latest guidance underscores the importance of meaningful information to help ICBs meet statutory duties and ensure continuous improvement in care quality. However, this isn’t just about numbers. NHS England rightly highlights the need for data to be complemented by qualitative insights, including staff and patient voices, to provide a well-rounded perspective on care delivery and system performance. For ICBs and PCNs looking to align with this guidance, Redmoor Health’s Global Assessment and Digital Maturity Index is a free visual dashboard that offers a practical, structured approach. By evaluating current systems, identifying gaps and benchmarking against digital maturity indicators, this tool provides actionable insights for commissioners and primary care leaders alike. ➡ Why is this important? 💡 Workforce Support: Empowering primary care teams with better tools and data ensures they can meet growing demands efficiently and effectively. Strategic Clarity: Commissioners gain a clear view of performance at a place level, enabling them to ask tough questions and address inequalities. 💡 Actionable Insights: The assessment supports continuous improvement, innovation, and evidence-based decision-making by triangulating data to identify where to focus efforts. In a landscape where digital maturity, shared care records, and the ability to address digital exclusion are key metrics, having the right support to interpret and act on data is vital. The Global Assessment, which is free to access, can help #ICBs and #PCNs not only comply with NHS England’s expectations but also transform how they deliver care, ensuring it meets the needs of their populations. This is more than a compliance exercise—it's an opportunity to embed a culture of continuous improvement and innovation, supporting better health outcomes for all. What are your thoughts on how ICBs can use data and insights more effectively to drive change? Let’s start the conversation! #DigitalTransformation #PrimaryCare #ContinuousImprovement Primary Care Analytics Conor Price https://lnkd.in/eyAbzpFG

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An interesting article in the HSJ titled "Cutting hospital staff won’t help productivity, says ICB chief" caught my attention today. I read it with a sense of frustration and urgency. Once again, the conversation around NHS productivity focuses on cutting hospital staff as if that’s the magic solution. Rob Webster is absolutely right—cutting staff doesn’t make the NHS more productive. At first glance, it seems counterintuitive because most narratives suggest we simply need more staff. But that’s not the answer either—not yet anyway. The biggest problem? We don’t actually know what our real resource is. Poor workforce planning has led us here. We’ve increased hospital staff numbers without understanding what the system truly needs holistically. As a result, we’re left with bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and a system that isn’t flowing as it should. We focus on hospitals while neglecting the wider network—community care, mental health services, primary care—each struggling in its own way. The solution isn’t about more staff or fewer staff. It’s about smarter workforce planning. Systems won't help in isolation; the real barrier to workforce planning is time, capacity, and in some cases, capability. That is the issue that needs solving. We need to understand the real demand, allocate resources accordingly, and ensure every part of the NHS is working in sync. It’s not about numbers—it’s about strategy. Let’s be frank: if you A) don’t know who your staff are, B) don’t know what they’re doing, and C) don’t understand your service demands, how can you make intelligent decisions about what you need to be productive? Before we jump to “not enough money” or “it’s more complicated than you think”—that’s precisely why it needs to be addressed. Your resources are precious and expensive, and it’s not nearly as complex as you imagine with the right help. I speak with senior NHS leaders—Medical Directors, Finance Directors—and they tell me the same thing: no oversight, no engagement, no consistency, and an aversion to creating conflict. I might get in trouble for saying this, but the focus should be simple: ensuring quality care, positive patient outcomes, and a happy workforce to deliver it. Until we address these core issues, we’ll keep spinning in circles, reacting to crises instead of planning for the future. Cutting staff isn’t a strategy—understanding our true capacity and planning for it is. I’ll keep banging this drum until we have an orchestra playing a fine tune. (Link to the article in the comments.) #productivity #nhs #Darzi #workforceplanning SARD JV

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Are you as ready as Derek is to workforce plan your NHS doctors? Let's hope not. We know it's complex, time-consuming, and not the most exciting subject for dinner parties or nights out. But we also need to recognise just how crucial it is and why it cannot be ignored. In today's environment, NHS workforce planning is vital. The reality is that many trusts are simply not ready. For most, it feels like an insurmountable challenge. Let's be frank: you don't have the time or resources to tackle it. Many simply buy a job planning system and hope for the best. It shouldn't be this way, and now it doesn't have to be. We've taken a long-standing problem, looked at it differently, transformed the approach and dare I say...solved it. Starting Monday, we'll embark on guiding another trust through our programme to optimise their workforce, from the foundations to the peak. Making this work is only possible through focused discovery - listening first, then acting. Ready or not, here we come. To find out more contact us on [email protected]. We start by listening. #NHS #workforceplanning #jobplanning #makethingsbetter #westartbylistening SARD JV

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I completely agree with the points raised here, Gus Kennedy. It's deeply frustrating to see such a critical sector stifled by outdated procurement frameworks that effectively shut out newer, innovative suppliers from contributing to NHS services. As a result, this kind of setup blocks competition and choice, ironically limiting market access at a time when the NHS should be prioritising value and agility to adapt to changing needs. The switch from central funding to ICB-controlled budgets should have opened the door for more competitive bids, yet the bulk of contracts still defaulted to legacy vendors like Accurx, as you highlighted with the recent October procurement outcomes. This reality contradicts the stated goal of moving away from monopolies in primary care tech, as it essentially trades one for another. It's clear that the procurement process urgently needs to be more flexible and transparent, not only to avoid entrenching incumbents but also to make space for innovative solutions that better meet the demands of modern healthcare. This approach would ultimately save taxpayer money and encourage health tech companies to keep investing in new solutions. Thanks for shedding light on this issue!

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This is really really important information for practices who have a seniority clawback inbound. BHP, Chartered Accountants do you have a source for the update - it’s interesting to see this relates to more recent years (previously) they appeared to be going back over a decade.)

This book can be the start we needed to really think in what needs to be done to change and save the NHS for good.It's in the hands of everyone working for and within NHS. Let's make the difference! Fit to Care: Insights from the nursing frontline: Working together to save the NHS https://amzn.eu/d/0fiZw2p

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