Session Recording
RECRUITMENT AND VACANCIES
Q: LUHFT has for several years now been bringing services inhouse. Now we are moving to a group of five can you give assurance that all of the Pharmacy, Estate, Procurement and Facilities team will not be TUPE’d out to Clatterbridge Propcare Services Limited which is a private limited company that don’t offer NHS AFC T&C’s
A: Developing commercial income and shared models for corporate services are a priority for the LAASP programme. However, there are no plans within LAASP to move people off NHS terms and conditions.
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Q: Given the scale of the financial challenges that have been set out previously, in terms of the requirement to live within our means, do you expect there to be fewer staff working in the group in future, being expected to do more?
A: We would expect that bringing corporate teams together will generate some efficiencies, by doing things together and removing the need to repeat tasks, rather than asking people to do more.
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Q: I work at LWH and we have NHSP for our bank. I am aware that LUH use an internal bank. Are there plans for things to change as part of the LAASP work?
A: There are no plans at present to move our bank workforce to NHSP. We will be working with the LAASP Trusts to determine whether or not it would be beneficial for all Trusts to move to NHSP or whether an internal bank for the Group is the best option. An options paper will be developed with all involved to determine the recommended position.
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Q: Is it possible that there may be redundancies in the admin staff?
A: We are currently holding admin vacancies within LUHFT sites as part of our current vacancy controls, which should prevent us from having to make anyone in an admin service redundant.
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Q: When is the embargo on filling clerical vacancies be reversed? Does the Trust not realise that eventually more services will be providing substandard care because of a lack of Admin support.
A: We are conscious of the impact we are having holding clerical vacancies and corporate posts over a prolonged period. Although each post held has a quality impact assessment, we recognise that continuation of holding posts will have a potential negative impact on our teams. We do review specific risks to service delivery when they are raised and have approved recruitment to these posts. However, we also need to continue to manage vacancies as part of our financial controls. This balance is really difficult.
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Q: Why has our department’s agenda for change not finalised the job descriptions yet, and why are the three team vacancies still unfilled despite being told not to recruit – what’s going on and when will we get clarity?
A: To understand a little more about this, are you able to please email Heather Barnett directly:Heather.
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Q: How does the Trust intend to support administrative staff who are expected to continue to deliver a sustained – or in a lot of cases, increasing - workload as the number of administrative staff across the Trust continues to decrease?
A: We need to ensure that line managers are supporting people with prioritising their workloads. We also need to design and develop new ways of working, using technology for example, to support people to do their jobs differently. Health and wellbeing is extremely important to us and we shouldn't expect people to be working increased hours or doing additional work for any prolonged period of time. If this is the case, risks should be raised in relation to this.
Site leadership teams need to be discussing the current areas where vacancies are held, and people are being asked to do additional work for a prolonged period of time. They then need to support staff to manage this. In terms of modernisation of services, we need to test new ways of working and an example of this would be the multiverse programme, encouraging people to design new ways of working digitally. In terms of H&WB, we have lots of offers for people to access, but line managers are key in ensuring the health and wellbeing of their teams.
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Q: Will LWH staff have access to internal job opportunities advertised over in LUFT and vice versa? If so, when?
A: All internal vacancies are open to employees of the Group and all adverts confirm this.
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Q: We have significant issues with HR functions across LUHFT, is there a plan for recruitment? How does that fit in with the vacancy freeze?
A: A paper was discussed at Execs yesterday, outlining the high levels of vacant posts and issues that this is causing to departments and staff across LUFHT. We agreed that these vacancies need to be filled, with the first opportunity to fill them to be offered to LAASP partners.
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Q: Will we be ensuring equity across the group in terms of vacancy freezes? Staff are getting new roles (within the group) which is great for them but then some of those vacated roles can't be filled because of the existing vacancy freeze.
A: This is something that James and the other CEOs are currently discussing as we cannot continue with LUHFT being the only Trust holding vacancies within our LAASP system.
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Q: Where is the health and wellbeing support for the staff who are directly affected by the vacancy freeze? We are losing staff due to stress related illnesses, and they feel they are unheard. This is also having a direct impact to service delivery, and we are unable to meet the needs of our patients
A: Please talk to your line manager about your wellbeing. Everyone should have the opportunity to have a wellbeing conversation.
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Q: When do you imagine the recruitment freeze will be lifted? This is very demotivating for staff members who are trying to follow development pathways
A: The recruitment freeze will be reassessed in the coming months as we approach a new financial year. However, we don't expect that all vacancies held will be released due to our ongoing financial pressures to deliver significant CIP in 2025/26.
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Q: Re the recruitment freeze, if this is down to cost, why was a Deputy DIPC/Divisional Director of Nursing advertised in January at Band 8D? Do 6 figure salary jobs take precedence over front line staff nurses and HCAs? I really don't understand how these jobs are banded.
A: A decision to recruit will be based on risk to the organisation of not having this role. we have statutory requirements around IPC, so I would expect this is the reason for having to recruit to this post. I do understand how this might appear though to other staff.
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Q: How are those areas that do balance their budgets in 25/26 going to be acknowledged.
A: Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to offer financial reward or other incentive, it’s not really an incentive situation and we’re going to have to manage to our budgets and the main focus should be getting those budgets right.
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Q: Outpatients has had a vacancy freeze for admin, which has had a massive impact on booking appointments, why was this not thought through especially when we want waiting times to come down for outpatients?
A: At the moment we’re balancing a huge number of risks, and we’re sighted on them. The vacancy controls were imposed on the organisation effectively because we’re not where we need to be financially. The long-term plan – the Group of Five – will offer a better balance of smaller scale challenges across the five organisations rather than all of it sitting with LUHFT, for example.
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Q: Will there be any divisional structure changes with the new group model – in particular DSS based at Aintree?
A: We’re in the middle of those conversations now and more of that will come out in the next few weeks. It’s not huge, it’s not cross organisational, but we have talked for a while now about thinking around how diagnostics comes together across a broader group in the future as we do know we have multiple DSS type divisions/structures across various organisations.
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Q: Band 7 Operational Manager posts that were held at HLT last Thursday – do you have an update as to when these will be released to allow Care Groups to recruit and support long term acting staff etc? It will only further support them to ensure the Elective recovery to improve, thanks
A: Unfortunately, as I don’t know which site this is in reference so I can’t answer this for you. The easiest thing for you to do would be to contact your Exec Managing Director of the site you’re based on.
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Q: Additional clinics/waiting list – How does the blanket ban on WIL rates save the Trust money when KPI recruitment is used instead, at a much higher cost?
A: How this works is, we have to move a standard payment rate for people in the organisation, particularly for an agenda for change. Where we’ve got services where people say they don’t want to work for their contracted rate, then we have no other option than to either look at outsourcing that waiting list to other Trusts or paying over the odds for someone else to do it – as insourcing in this case – but that is still more cost effective than constantly breaking the agenda for change rate rules and that spreading across the organisation and creating a constant issue.
ELECTRONIC PATIENT RECORD
Q: Will you be exploring EPIC EPR which is used at MFT?
A: No EPR vendor is off the table and providing they submit a response to the invitation to tender, we will review and evaluate.
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Q: Projects like EPR and other trust projects require experienced staff to take part. How are any improvement projects going to move forward when services are on their knees due to staffing and the vacancy freeze putting immense pressure on the staff on the ground floor doing the work.
A: The vacancy freeze is a this-year issue we know we’ve got to deal with, it’s not going to go away but we hope that we can reduce the impact of it by spreading it further and wider across organisations and resolving this issue of a funding gap that we’ve got.
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Q: Are there examples across the country where hospitals have successfully used the same EPR which incorporates maternity, particularly the fetal monitoring in labour? Feel like we have worked so hard to get k2 to where it is just to start all over again?
A: Not sure of specific examples but will make sure the EPR teams get your query. If you email me directly, I can provide a formal response once the team have considered this. Where we have existing specialist systems that need to remain, we will ensure they are fully integrated. We will engage with staff groups regarding their specialist systems as part of the procurement and evaluation process.
CAR PARKING
Q: Broadgreen parking has been for a while and is still an issue, grass is ruined under link near Queens Drive exit as people have taken to parking on it recently, posting a warning does nothing as the same people continue to park on double yellow all around the site.
A: We are constantly monitoring the site, and unfortunately this is down to staff behaviours as we have had capacity in the multi-storey car park of over 50 spaces a day - yet they are choosing to park near the exit. We have recently recruited to the car parking team and will be re-introducing car parking enforcement.
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Q: Is there any extra provision for car parking at the Royal. I have applied for a permit but am on the waiting list and have recently been approached for money and as a lone female this quite a frightening experience as I am having to park further from the hospital and there is not a lot of people around in the morning – at RLH site I should say
A: We still have a waiting list in operation and are regularly reviewing this and utilising Paddington as much as we can. Car parking options are also being reviewed by the RLH HLT.
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Q: Parking at the Royal still has been parking on double yellow lines and in dangerous positions putting people and cars at risk. What is being done to penalise these drivers
A: We know it’s a reoccurring issue and we are working on managing this as best as we can. We’re so close now with the Old Royal coming down to have the opportunity to move to a different traffic management system at the Royal.
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Q: If I already have an existing car parking pass for Broadgreen, can I have a transfer to Royal? I know well in advance that I will be moving to the Royal, but I can only apply 2 weeks before my move apparently. Why can't I be added to the waiting list now?
A: This is to help manage the car parking waiting list, as we currently have existing Royal based staff on the list. This is the fairest way to effectively avoid queue jumping.
GENERAL
Q: Do you think this planning guidance is relatively short/ not as detailed as we await the 10 year plan?
A: In keeping the planning guidance relatively short, NHSE are trying to ensure that each organisation has clarity on key priorities for the coming year. The NHS 10 Year plan remains on target for being completed in Spring 2025, but this is dependent on completion of further workshops with NHS staff in February and a national summit in Spring the exact dates are still to be confirmed.
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Q: When can we expect report of the Trust’s latest CQC inspection?
A: The CQC have an aim to publish inspection reports within 50 days of the inspection which takes into account the opportunity for the Trust to review in terms of factual accuracy. Once we have received the formal findings, we will inform colleagues.
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Q: Given that access to mental health for young people being a priority, is/would the Trust consider establishing psychological support inhouse for young people with long term health problems that is not specifically funded by certain specialties and would be accessible for all departments?
A: We are starting to look at whether we can access funding and we’ll absolutely be looking at whether we can do that in collaboration with Mersey Care.
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Q: How do we learn from the critical incident in terms of business as usual? Can the learning be shared
A: Again, this will come back via the EPRR route. Yes, we can share this and I will pick this up with the EPRR Team to see how they intend to do that.
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Q: Is Broadgreen now sitting within the Royal HLT?
A: The same Executive Managing Director, Natalie Hudson, is now covering both sites.
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Q: Complaints process is still awful; will this be reviewed?
A: We need to ensure that any complaints or concerns are dealt with timely, and we will be working closely to fully understand the current position and any improvements. We will cover any changes in future sessions.
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Q: Whilst I appreciate the focus on EDI, I didn't notice a message for Hanukkah nor did I see anything around Holocaust memorial day. Was this just an oversight?
A: Screensavers and digital screens were displayed for Hanukkah and the Trusts (LUHFT and LWH) took part in the national Holocaust Memorial Day events with NHS England, details of which were shared in Liverpool News. Together with our ED&I team we are always reviewing how we can mark days such as these.
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Q: What is the trust looking to do for International Women's Day on 8 March given that so many staff are women?
A: We shall be sharing information about this in the coming weeks – Comms
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Q: The recent staff pulse survey had a question on Martha's rule and whether staff are aware of it. I'd never heard of it or seen anything on in from the comms team. Is this Trust piloting this initiative, and if so, when will staff and patients get further information on it?
A: Within our organisation it is being piloted in some select areas at the moment. This will be rolled out further at a later date and information shared.
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Q: There are so many broken things in the offices on the 9th floor. They are reported and get fixed, but consistently breaking. Did we buy everything cheap, and do we use cheap labour/materials to repair them? It's hard to want to come to the office 5 days a week when there is constantly broken taps, toilet roll holders, soap dispensers, doors, fridges etc.
A: If things are breaking to that level, we have to look at how people are using these things as they should not be breaking at this level. There is ongoing work in the Royal team to look at the 9th floor and some of the issues up there so I will feed this back to the Royal team to pick up.
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Q: Why is smoking person not out on West Derby Street, most are staff of course! but they need moving on, sick of seeing new chairs out front. should this not be part of security role, as I don't think this is worthy of a position of course, money better spent elsewhere.
A: We do have a group looking at this at the Royal, so I will ask them to specifically answer this through their Exec MD briefing.