Drugs and alcohol workforce action plan 2023 to 2026

Section C – The Drugs and Alcohol Workforce Action Plan

What is the wider challenge across the Health and Social Care sector?

The Plan pillar of the workforce journey illustrates a need for improved data gathering. We need to be able to identify the demographics and geographical spread of our drugs and alcohol workforce.

We need improved data so that we can understand how staff enter the workforce, the career paths that they take, the skills they develop and the reasons they leave. The whole system approach requires improved workforce planning at a local level to help us better meet the needs of our communities.

What needs to change within the drugs and alcohol sector?

Planning is critical to achieving the right workforce with the right skills in the right place at the right time. This needs to be underpinned by an understanding of where and how the workforce delivers drugs and alcohol services and support.

Drugs and alcohol workforce data is too often inconsistent, sparse and lacking in accuracy. It is often challenging to define what work is delivered, and by what posts. We need comprehensive drugs and alcohol workforce data at national, regional, and local levels.

Work to improve data capture and allow improved understanding and articulation of the entire drugs and alcohol workforce has begun. It is anticipated that this work will lay the foundations to facilitate the collection of trend information. This will help support how, and where, interventions should be tailored to achieve our workforce vision.

What have we done so far?

Challenge

The need to understand the challenges impacting upon the drugs and alcohol workforce.

The Scottish Government undertook research to better understand the composition of the drugs and alcohol workforce. This research included both collection and analysis of existing datasets and generating new workforce data.

Outcome

The resulting suite of publications (the workforce research compendium^[30]), published in March 2022, provided crucial insights about Scotland’s drugs and alcohol workforce. This research provided a rich evidence base across a variety of topics including service types, staff numbers, wellbeing, vacancy rates and caseloads.

This research has been critical in informing how we can support and empower individuals and organisations delivering frontline services.

Action 1

The Scottish Government has undertaken and published the ‘Alcohol and Drugs Workforce: Mixed-Methods Research Compendium’.

Timeline

Completed.

What will we do next?

Challenge

The need to improve drugs and alcohol workforce planning.

Action 125, of the ‘Changing Lives’ report set out that the Scottish Government should undertake a review to determine the required workforce to deliver the service developments and key commitments of the National Mission. The complexity of the sector, which spans a range of service types and organisations, presents a significant barrier to workforce planning.

Improved data capture is required to improve our understanding of demographics and support a workforce which is more diverse and reflective of the communities that it cares for. Having a comprehensive understanding of the drugs and alcohol workforce is critical to delivery of multiple actions identified in this Action Plan.

Outcome

The Scottish Government has been working in collaboration with a number of ADPs to undertake a workforce mapping exercise. This will allow us to develop an enhanced understanding of the drugs and alcohol workforce.

Mapping will allow us to more easily articulate the locations in which services are delivered, funding streams, access points, and professions within each setting and service. Mapping will allow us to illustrate the current number of workers within each setting, serving as a foundation to determine the required workforce to deliver service developments. This will allow planning to be grounded on a firm grasp of the diverse landscape of services, providers, locations, and professionals working in this sector.

It is anticipated that this mapping exercise will allow us to begin to understand how the workforce may need to change to meet the priorities of the National Mission and the resources required to deliver this shift. It is also anticipated that we will use the information generated to identify shortfalls which limit the ability to deliver quality services where they are needed.

Next Steps: It is anticipated that this work will continue to evolve until it allows measurement of the efficacy of workforce planning efforts and monitoring of improvements in addressing gaps.

Census: Upon completion of the drugs and alcohol workforce mapping exercise the Scottish Government will consider the development of a census collection tool to undertake comprehensive analysis of this workforce. This would be informed by work undertaken by our counterparts in England. This would allow understanding of participation rates by region and sector type as well as a summary of services provision.

A workforce census would highlight where staff are employed by sector and area. It may include an overview of workforce numbers by job role group, salary profile, time in post, contract detail as well as metrics for vacancies, sickness, turnover and demographics.

It is anticipated that this work could inform the development of a National Specification outlining the key parts of the treatment and recovery system that should be available in every local area.

Traffic Flow: It is anticipated that the workforce map will be further developed to demonstrate traffic flow within services and may potentially be informed by prevalence data to identify service requirements and an ideal model of service provision.

Action 2

We will undertake a comprehensive workforce mapping exercise which will accurately articulate the scope of Scotland’s drugs and alcohol workforce.

Timeline

Initiated Tranche 1 (2023/24).

Action 3

We will build upon the workforce mapping exercise to support improved workforce planning and service design.

Timeline

To be initiated in Tranche 2 (2024/25).

Challenge

The need to improve workforce data capture.

Whilst the information generated in the workforce research compendium was incredibly valuable, it provided only a snapshot at the point of time the data was collected in late 2021. Therefore, further work to capture workforce data as standard requires to be inbuilt to our services.

There exists limitations in the capability to provide any validated analysis from the range of sources of workforce data and information. This is further compounded by the variance in the way data and workforce information is collated and recorded. There are inconsistencies in definitions of workforce groups and specific job roles are difficult to analyse due to limitations in the way systems are set up to record the information.

Outcome

The Scottish Government will work with appropriate clinical specialists to articulate the different expectations of specialist roles and develop an accurate description of those. The Scottish Government will explore how we can work with partners, such as NHS Education for Scotland (NES), who maintain workforce statistics for every professional group in the NHS, and Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), who publish social service workforce data information and intelligence to routinely identify those who identify drugs and alcohol treatment as being the primary service area in which they work.

The Scottish Government recognises anecdotal reports of a form of consultation fatigue, where some staff, responsible for data management, experience the collection process as burdensome. Any future requirement for further data collection will ensure that this is taken into consideration and any additional demands upon staff are limited to that which realise demonstrable benefit.

Action 4

We will improve drugs and alcohol workforce data capture.

Timeline

To be initiated in Tranche 2 (2024/25).