Primary care networks (PCNs) in North East and North Cumbria ICS are to receive regular funding to support workforce planning and training.
According to an update in a Cleveland LMC newsletter, the ICS will provide funding to allow a PCN to identify a workforce lead.
This will be accompanied by reimbursement for up to eight hours each month for the time the lead spends on training and workforce planning.
It comes as the ICS’s Primary Care Training Hub released a Multi-Disciplinary Workforce Training Needs Analysis, which it said would help PCNs identify and address training gaps among their staff.
Acknowledging the need to support workforce development and transformation, the Hub will then work with the PCN to bring its staff’s skills up to date and assist with succession planning.
The newsletter said: ‘In recognition of the importance of having dedicated time to ensure that workforce planning can be undertaken, funding is available to enable you to identify a workforce lead (if you don’t have one already) and PCNs will be reimbursed for up to eight hours per month to ensure the workforce lead is able to undertake training and planning within their role.’
Commenting on the scheme, Louise Patten, director of the NHS Confederation’s ICS Network said: ‘This is a welcome initiative and one that recognises the time and work needed to plan and recruit multi-disciplinary teams working across numerous sites.
‘Across ICSs there is no one size that fits all and it will be up to ICS leaders and their partners to work closely with colleagues in PCNs to decide together on plans tailored to local need.’
Health secretary Sajid Javid last week suggested the NHS will not get extra funding to boost its workforce, despite previously admitting the Government is ‘not on track’ to meet its election pledge of 6,000 extra GPs by 2025.
And last week, NHS England refused to clarify what funding PCNs will receive for delivering the new PCN extended hours scheme.
This article was initially published on our sister title Pulse.
