Welcome to Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care System’s New Offer for Our Workforce
The information set out here is aimed at helping our workforce – no matter which part of our system you work in, whether it be in primary or social care, for an NHS Trust, or the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise sector - to understand how you can benefit from our New Offer aimed at making working in health and care in Birmingham and Solihull the best it can be. Please keep reading to find out more about the New Offer and how you can benefit from it. This website will continue to be updated as the New Offer is rolled out.
The New Offer
Our Open Conversations: The Journey to the Co-Creation of Our New Offer for Our Workforce
In the winter of 2023, we launched an unprecedented staff engagement initiative – ‘Our Open Conversations’. A ground-breaking, bold, and inclusive approach to reconnecting with our workforce, central to its ambition was to make working in health and care in Birmingham and Solihull the best it can be.
Delivered independently via the people participation and strategy agency Clever Together, our staff and volunteers were encouraged to share their feelings, frustrations and ideas for improving their working lives via an all-encompassing and anonymous online conversation. This secure platform could be accessed by the entire workforce, around the clock and on any device.
The response was enthusiastic, with staff and volunteers welcoming the opportunity to express their opinions. The resulting data from the first conversation was analysed against Clever Together’s Best Place to Work Framework and the NHS Culture and Leadership Framework.
The results enabled us to begin drafting a set of pledges; key policy pillars that would sit at the heart of a New Offer for our workforce, delivering a collective commitment to our staff and volunteers working in health and care in Birmingham and Solihull.
In spring 2024, the second of Our Open Conversations gave everyone working or volunteering in our workforce the opportunity to see and discuss these pledges before they were finalised, and to feed back their opinions as we worked towards what would become our New Offer.
Almost 3,000 staff and volunteers took part across the two Conversations with 18,000 ideas, comments and votes being shared. Analysis of the second Conversation showed overwhelming support for the new pledges, delivering a clear mandate for change.
About Our New Offer For Our Workforce
The New Offer, co-created directly with our people working in health and care, is being rolled out across our system in 2024 and beyond.
At the heart of our New Offer are four clear Pledges designed to address directly the thoughts voiced by our staff and volunteers through Our Open Conversations.
Our aspiration is to deliver fundamental improvements to our workforce’s daily working lives and to place their stated priorities at the centre of our focus.
To deliver this pledge we are delivering a number of initiatives within the New Offer which will be available across the breadth of the workforce. These will include an Online Skills Hub, two Talent Recognition Schemes, a System and Leadership Programme and a Coaching and Mentoring Programme.
Initiatives supporting delivery of this Pledge in the New Offer include new system-wide Shared Behavioural Standards and a Restorative and Just Culture Programme, plus schemes to ensure that leadership is visible and inclusive, as well as a system-wide Inclusive Recruitment and Culture Framework.
We are implementing initiatives as part of our New Offer which include strengthening our system-wide Freedom to Speak Up Guardian Network and a System-wide Staff Mental Health Hub in addition to continuing Our Open Conversations to feedback on progress and take forward emerging priorities.
The final Pledge is our commitment to ensure staff can move roles with greater ease across the system and have more flexibility. The New Offer includes a Flexible Working Framework identifying measurements to track success, alongside an innovative system-wide Staff Mobility Policy.
About Some of the Initiatives in the New Offer
As the New Offer is rolled out more details of the initiatives within it will be shared with our workforce and via this website.
Possibilities Beyond Limits Development Programme
Supporting our staff to grow as part of our New Offer, we have launched the Possibilities Beyond Limits (PLB) development programme to improve the identification, engagement, and retention of colleagues from diverse backgrounds. PBL is a transformational programme launched by Birmingham Community Healthcare. This CPD-certified programme provides participants with the skills, confidence, and networks needed to advance their careers. Applications are open now until 28 October 2024.
Charter of Health and Care
This Charter has been developed with our workforce to support the system’s clinical and care professionals, as we strive to improve the health of our population. It acknowledges that we work in different contexts, and that we experience different risks and challenges when supporting and delivering care. Recognising the current financial environment, it also states the importance of us working together to take difficult decisions whilst ensuring that the care we provide is of the highest quality and value.
Supporting Health and Wellbeing
Our support for staff continues to expand with the introduction of our EasyChange app which supports people to eat better, be more active, sleep better, reduce stress, feel better, drink less and stop smoking. This is alongside continuing system-wide support for our staff through access to our dedicated Citizens Advice Bureau phone service, access to Relate counselling, and support through our Staff Mental Health Hub.
You can find out more about our support for staff health and wellbeing here.
Staff Recognition Campaign
To ensure our workforce is recognised for their contribution, we will deliver a distinctive and striking Staff Recognition Campaign which will celebrate and share the achievements of our staff and volunteers.
Lasting two years, it will tell the stories of featured staff members, reflecting how our workforce is valued in the wider system. Bringing a renewed strength of identity to health and care in Birmingham and Solihull, we expect the campaign to reach 250,000 people via out-of-home advertising and sharing content with statutory partners, and to drive broader engagement and awareness.