The key focus of our review has been on whether the Health Board’s approach to workforce planning is helping it to effectively address current and future NHS workforce challenges. Specifically, we looked at the Health Board’s strategic approach to workforce planning, operational action to manage current and future workforce challenges, and monitoring and oversight arrangements.

Operational workforce management arrangements, such as staff/nurse rostering and consultant job planning, fall outside the scope of this review.

Overall, we found that the Health Board has set clear workforce priorities based on a good understanding of its significant risks.
It is working hard to address its immediate workforce challenges and its key actions are appropriately aligned to its agreed People Plan.
However, the approach is over-emphasising the short term and operational fixes.
There is a clear need to revisit Clinical Futures implementation plans so that they enable the development of financially affordable, efficient, and sustainable service workforce models.