Health and social care: improving wellbeing and working cultures

2. Our Ambition

The National Workforce Strategy made it clear that the wellbeing of our health, social care and social work workforces, wherever you work, must be a priority.

Our ambition is to deliver on the relevant outcomes of the National Workforce Strategy. Working with partners we are committed to a workforce that:

• is inclusive and diverse, reflective of the communities that it cares for and supports.
• has a working environment that promotes wellbeing, provides strong leadership and supports staff to grow and develop their capabilities.

Those who deliver and support our services need to be supported by compassionate leaders, teams and organisations. Enabling those leading and working in organisations to create the conditions in which all staff feel heard and valued will contribute to the delivery of high-quality person-centred care and services that support this.

In the Action Plan we will demonstrate activities that are planned and underway nationally to support the "Nurture” pillar of the National Workforce Strategy. All work under the areas of Wellbeing, Leadership and Equality will be aligned to the following outcomes:

Wellbeing

• Essential practical needs are met in line with statutory duties of employers
• Staff are psychologically safe, including support following traumatic events
• Staff are physically safe
• Staff have their mental health and wellbeing prioritised such that they are not harmed by their experiences in the work place and when they are impacted, can received appropriate, specialised care

Leadership

• Support and interventions are available nationally to develop inclusive, compassionate leaders who can deliver public service reform
• Talent management and succession planning are supported locally and nationally, to ensure we have a valid leadership pipeline for critical roles
• Development and interventions are available for leaders at all levels to support leadership skills and capabilities

Equality

• Support inclusive working cultures and diversity in workplaces, to enable teams to better represent the communities they serve to improve care and richness of knowledge
• Support development interventions for both the minority and majority workforce, to enable equality, diversity and inclusion
• Support systemic changes that address inequalities in the workplace
• Promote accountability within systems that are vital to ensure values of diversity and inclusion are imbedded in workplace cultures

Our intention is to build on this through the development of the Improving Wellbeing and Working Cultures ‘In Action’ Guide which recognises the good work that is already underway, share best practice and enable organisations to implement practical actions.