Darent Valley hospital - DGT - People Strategy

Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust

People Strategy Joy at Work Happy, Healthy & Heard

Care with compassion

Respect & dignity

Striving to excel

Professional standards

2020 - 2025

Working together

Foreword

Our five year People Strategy, Happy, Healthy & Heard, sets out an exciting programme of work

as antibody tests and risk assessments for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic staff, and at-risk staff. We have implemented social distancing, and continue to ensure that staff have the right protective equipment for their role, and we have also rapidly expanded our health and wellbeing offer, supported by introducing two new senior roles to oversee the delivery of: • a Time to Talk Team providing confidential, supportive conversations • dedicated wellbeing spaces for staff to relax, recover and re-energise • greater communications including a regular podcast hosted by our Executive Team, with many staff contributing and sharing their experiences and challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic • advice and guidance through leaflets, an improved website and access to support services including counselling • staff sharing their talents whether through running yoga and meditation classes for others to join, or by recording a video of their talents including cocktail making, singing and cooking The commitment of our local communities, faith groups and businesses supporting our staff during the COVID-19 pandemic has been overwhelming; we have been humbled by the kindness, generosity and donations received, including edible treats, home-made cards, masks and scrubs, posters, knitted hearts and comfortable shoes! Our People Strategy seeks to expand on this wellbeing offer to staff and maximise engagement with our community. It is important thatwe focusoncelebratingdiversity and promoting equality to ensure that all staff feel included and supported. We look forward to hearing staff views through our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Council, and working together to stamp out discrimination of all kind to improve our staff and patient experience.

that will help staff to: • feel happier at work • live healthier lives

• have their views on how we run the Trust heard Our People Strategy will deliver the Trust’s strategic objective, ‘Joy at Work’, emphasising engagement, equality, diversity and inclusion to ensure staff have a sense of belonging and fulfilment in their roles. Dartford and Gravesham Trust has a highly committed, skilled and diverse workforce, providing care and services of a high quality, maintained through our values-based interview process. Like other Trusts, we have challenges in recruiting to all posts and retaining some staff. This strategy looks at how we: • listen to what staff want • promote agile working • support staff through times of both challenge and celebration The Trust strategy focuses on becoming a learning organisation with continuous improvement at the heart of its culture. We will seek to maximise opportunities for learning and developing staff at all levels and in all roles, working closely with our partners: • Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, through the GST Healthcare Alliance • Kent and Medway through our Integrated Care System • Integrated Care Partnerships in Dartford, consultative and local negotiating committees Staff have shown extraordinary commitment to patient care and supporting each other during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have adapted to new working environments, different roles and new ways of working. We are proud of the positivity, can-do attitude and enthusiasm that staff have shown throughout. The health and wellbeing of our staff is of paramount importance. We have offered testing for symptomatic staff and their families, as well Gravesham and Swanley and in Bexley • staff-side representatives through joint • attract the best talent • train and retain staff

Louise Lester Chief People Officer

Dr. Gill Jenner Non-Executive Director, Chair of Workforce Committee

Contents

Executive summary

4

Introduction

5

Context

6-7

Changes in our approach

8

Happy

9

Healthy

10

Heard

11

Mapping of the Trust People Against National People plan

12-13

14-15

What our workforce will look like in 5 years

16

Implementing, monitoring delivery and reporting of the strategy

17

Board the KPIs that will be delivered through the People Strategy

18-19

Communicating the strategy and progress of its delivery

Executive summary

Achieving our journey to Outstanding through Joy At Work - happy, healthy and heard staff

Happy We will support and develop our staff, creating talented people for our organisation. Our staff will consistently report improved fulfilment at work, leading to local, regional and national recognition that the Dartford and Gravesham Trust is the best place to work. Healthy We will provide holistic health and wellbeing support to all staff to promote healthy living, and provide emotional support during challenging times.

Heard Our staff will work in an open and transparent culture in which they are treated with equality, dignity and respect and are listened to through active involvement in decision making (shared governance).

Our values:

4

Trust Strategy Summary

Introduction

People Strategy delivery programmes:

Our People Strategy is central to the successful delivery of all the other Trust strategies, as each one relies on our talented and committed staff delivering outstanding care. This strategy seeks to support staff to get the most out of their career here at Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, and be the best that they can be. The strategy has been informed by: • the National Health Service People Plan; • o ur co-developed workforce plan for the DGS Integrated Care Partnership and the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Strategy; • our staff survey; • c hallenges and successes through the COVID-19 pandemic; • o ur partnership working with GST Healthcare Alliance; • and through engagement with our staff The strategy focuses on the delivery of the strategic objective, ‘Joy at Work’, by supporting staff to be happy , healthy and heard , with a sense of belonging and fulfilment. The Joy at Work strategic objective comprises three outcomes that will be achieved through the delivery of the People Strategy as illustrated below. Joy At Work outcomes: Happy We will support and develop our staff, creating talented people for our organisation. Our staff will consistently report improved fulfilment at work, leading to local, regional and national recognition that Dartford and Gravesham Trust is the best place to work.

Delivery programmes: • Recruitment and retention • Education and training • Workforce opportunities through our partnerships (ICP, ICS, GST Healthcare Alliance) • Workforce design

Delivery programmes: • Wellbeing • Occupational Health programme, for fit and healthy staff (including mental health)

• Celebration of diversity • Community engagement

Delivery programmes: • Shared governance programme – Quality Councils • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion programme & council • Partnership working with JCC and LNC • Freedom to Speak Up

Healthy We will provide holistic health and wellbeing support to all staff, to promote healthy living and provide emotional support at all times.

Heard Our staff will work in an open and transparent culture in which they are treated with equality, dignity and respect, and are listened to through active involvement in decision making (shared governance).

5

Trust Strategy Summary

Context

Dartford and Gravesham Trust Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust (DGT) provides a comprehensive range of acute services to a population of 400,000 across Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley, and Bexley. Services are provided across two main hospital sites: 1. Darent Valley: providing elective and emergency care 2. Queen Mary’s: planned care centre Dartford and Gravesham Trust has a committed family of highly skilled, trusted and kind staff. There are over 3,400 staff, from a variety of professional and technical backgrounds, as well as over 170 volunteers that provide invaluable support to the overall patient experience. Our teams are continually striving to improve the quality of the care we provide, improving the safety and effectiveness of our services and the experience of our patients and their carers. This map shows the population that we serve and the hospital sites that we primarily operate from. However, we provide outreach services to a wide range of places in the community including GP practices, community hospitals, care homes and patient homes. Our population is rapidly growing with local developments such as Ebbsfleet Garden City, a Healthy New Town. The population is set to grow by 35,000 within five years and by 55,000 within 10 years.

This, as with all of our strategies for 2020-2025, has been developed in the context of this exceptional population growth as well as the demographics of the population we serve. The demographics across Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley, and Bexley are similar, with pockets of high levels of deprivation, a range of ethnicities and languages spoken, and a population with a high proportion of young and older people (under 19 and over 85s). We have developed this People Strategy taking into consideration: • our local and national context; • feedback from our staff, obtained through staff forums; • Executive Team discussions with their linked wards; • the chief executive podcast ; • and from the Trust Leadership Team. The strategy will be shared with staff and feedback will be incorporated into the detailed work within the delivery programmes.

MAP?

6

Trust Strategy Summary

Context

Local and national

National: NHS People Plan 2020/21 • Looking after our people - particularly the actions we must all take to keep our staff safe, healthy and well, both physically and psychologically. The plan sets out the ambition and action for the National Health Service to embrace flexible working • Belonging in the NHS - the need to create an organisational culture where everyone feels they belong. This includes urgent action to address systemic inequality that is felt by staff, including overhauling recruitment processes to achieve representation at all levels, as well as making sure we all listen to, and act upon, the views and experiences of our staff. It also covers actions to support and promote compassionate and inclusive leadership. • New ways of working and delivering care - making effective use of the full range of our people’s skills and experience to deliver the best possible patient care. Building strong multidisciplinary teams, as well as upskilling staff and making the most of the skills and energy of our wider workforce, including volunteers. The plan focuses on urgently resuming education and training for our staff for the future. • Growing for the future – building on unprecedented interest in National Health Service careers to expand and develop the workforce through local domestic and international recruitment. The plan encourages action to support former staff to return to the National Health Service, as well as retaining people for longer; It reinforces the need for continued and iterative workforce planning and transformation, and the activities for systems to undertake to enable people to be recruited and deployed across organisations, sectors and geographies.

Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust (the Trust) Local: DGS and Kent and Medway Workforce Plan Context, including COVID-19 • Promote Kent and Medway as a great place to work • Maximise supply of health and social care workforce • Create lifelong careers in health and social care • Develop our system leaders and encourage culture change through the leadership compact • Improve workforce wellbeing and inclusion, and address workload to increase retention • International recruitment campaigns/approaches • Reduce reliance on agency staff • Digital solutions that support releasing time to care, including e-rostering and e-job planning • Link with the regional/local talent board to specifically review how we can support an increase in Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff at senior levels, and agree indicators for success • Increase in number of training doctors within Kent and Medway e.g. through the new medical school • Supporting agile, remote and flexible working, enabling social distancing, but also supporting staff with more flexible working options (being an employer of choice) • New ways of working and connecting with staff • Expanding workforce skill set through training and education to readily adapt to new roles in national crisis, including working across organisations to learn new skills • Develop strategies and approaches to support our most vulnerable staff for increasing diversity and inclusion • Increase in use of apprenticeship levy

7

Trust Strategy Summary

Changes in our approach

The Trust, local and national context have shaped the direction of this strategy for the next five years. We have focused our strategy around the three ‘Joy at Work’ outcomes: happy, healthy and heard. Each of these outcomes is comprised of a series of programmes of work which are set out in the following pages. The key changes in our strategic direction are:

Happy • More flexible and innovative working options such as: contract types, redeployment options, allocate work in an agile way including passports with our partners • Use of technology such as wide adoption of e-rostering and e-job planning • Achieve Investors in People ‘Gold’ in 2024 Healthy • Invest in health and wellbeing infrastructure, learning from our experiences working during the COVID-19 pandemic and the staff feedback that this should be retained - including mental health and wellbeing models, wellbeing spaces and the Time2Talk team • Maximising our engagement with the community to become the local employer of choice Heard • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion - councils and senior lead to ensure there is a focus on diversity at a senior enabling us to regularly hear from staff, allowing a more frequent opportunity to respond to staff’s issues • Listening posts • Responding to issues raised by staff, such as childcare support and car parking provision level and throughout the Trust • Investment in a feedback tool,

8

Trust Strategy Summary

Happy

Joy at work: Happy Lead: Chief People Officer

Workforce design

• Agile workforce development • Sharing agreements and passports with system partners and the GST Healthcare Alliance. • Partnering with our ICP and Kent and Medway ICS partners to offer joint training and rotations • Engagement with Kent and Medway Medical School and Health Care Academy • Build stronger relationships with schools and colleges in Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley and Bexley to encourage apprentices and school leavers to join the Trust to develop their careers in healthcare • Recruitment strategy including community employer; apprentice optimisation plan; international recruitment; and volunteers • Clear benefits package/total reward – our offer • Kent and Medway, system-wide talent management including identifying talent • Retention strategy including focus on flexibility; internal development routes and values-based recruitment • Staff reward and recognition • Interview techniques to reduce unconscious bias and promote diversity including disability and learning difficulty Recruitment and retention • Clear Divisional structures which show accountability and enable shared governance • Services and Divisions have clear workforce plans that include new roles and reflect service changes as a result of strategic or operational changes, e.g. Kent and Medway stroke review and COVID-19 • Development of new roles and ways of working include flexible working, innovative and remote working and also social distancing • Ambition to have zero agency staff • Workforce systems (e.g. e-rostering, e-job Opportunities through partnerships

Outcome: We will support and develop our staff, creating talented people for our organisation. Our staff will consistently report improved fulfilment at work, leading to local, regional and national recognition that Dartford and Gravesham Trust is the best place to work. There are four key delivery programmes that support the achievement of the Happy outcome. Each delivery programme comprises of a number of initiatives that will be progressed over the course of the next five years. Progress against each of these will be monitored by the Workforce Committee. There are four key delivery programmes that support the achievement of the Happy outcome. Each delivery programme comprises of a number of initiatives that will be progressed over the course of the next five years. Progress against each of these will be monitored by the Workforce Committee.

Education and training

• Induction support and preceptor programmes • Education and development plan • Realising potential at all levels

• High quality appraisals • Coaching and mentoring • Succession planning

• System leadership skills • Digital literacy increase • Utilising the training and development programmes on offer through GST Healthcare Alliance • Investors in People – maintain Silver throughout 2021, and progress to achieve Gold in 2024

9

Trust Strategy Summary

Healthy

Joy at work: Healthy Lead: Director of Wellbeing

Occupational Health

• Security provision on sites • Training for reporting concerns, managing challenging behaviour and conflict resolution • Staff feedback to be used to improve safety and security offered • Community Engagement • Engagement with community groups, faith groups, local businesses and charities, as well as schools and colleges, in designing services and how best to ensure social distancing • Explore opportunities for pre-employment support • Re-invigorate no-excuse-for-abuse campaign • Physical and mental health support for all staff and managers, including partner organisations such as Serco • Reviewing employee assistance provider support • COVID-19 testing and support • Commercial relationships that support the health and wellbeing of aspects of staff working across all sites Safety and Security of Staff

Outcome: We will provide holistic health and wellbeing support to all staff to promote healthy living and provide emotional support during challenging times. There are five key delivery programmes that support the achievement of the Healthy outcome. Each delivery programme comprises of a number of initiatives that will be progressed over the course of the next five years. Progress against each of these will be monitored by the Workforce Committee.

Wellbeing

• Holistic offering of practical, psychological and physical health support • Time2Talk team – active listening and incident support

• Inspirational speakers • Wellbeing / staff spaces • Resilience support • Staff recognition and awards

Community Engagement

• Engagement with community groups, faith groups, local businesses and charities, as well as schools and colleges, in designing services and how best to ensure social distancing • Explore opportunities for pre-employment support • Re-invigorate no-excuse-for-abuse campaign

Celebration of Diversity

• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Council • Awareness campaign weeks promoted • Broad range of cultural and religious events celebrated • Reverse mentoring • Education offering focused on increasing understanding and acceptance

10

Trust Strategy Summary

Heard

Joy at work: Heard Lead: Director of Improvement & Chief People Officer

Effective Shared Governance

• Listening to staff through Quality Councils, chaired by a member of staff at band 6 or below, for each Division • Strengthening partnership working with staff side colleagues and unions through the Joint Consultative and Local Negotiating Committees

Outcome: Our staff will work in an open and transparent culture, inwhich they are treatedwith equality, dignity and respect, and are listened to through active involvement in decision making (shared governance). There are three key delivery programmes that support the achievement of the Heard outcome. Each delivery programme comprises of a number of initiatives which will be progressed over the course of the next five years. Progress against each of these will be monitored by the Workforce Committee .

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Council • Living Trust values and behaviours • Best place to work for all – inclusion charter

• Externally led training • Embrace best practice

• Focus on equal opportunities for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals, LGBTQI+ and those with disabilities

Listening to Staff

• Implement a quarterly staff engagement survey and morale checks (in addition to the annual staff survey) • Delivery of the Freedom to Speak Up strategy, including organisational learning and partnership working with guardian for safe working • Developing a culture of compassionate leadership • Listening posts • Respond to issues raised by staff, such as childcare support and car parking

11

Trust Strategy Summary

Mapping of the Trust People Strategy

Mapping of Trust People Strategy against National People Plan 2020-2021 The following maps the Trust’s People Strategy, Joy At Work, against the key themes within the National People Plan.

Looking after our people Happy • Retention Strategy – focus on flexibility • Investors In People – silver to gold • Agile workforce development • Development of new roles & ways of working

Belonging in the NHS

Happy • Recruitment Strategy • Benefits / total reward offer • Talent spotting and management • Reward and recognition

• Interview techniques – reduce unconscious bias • Induction support and preceptor programmes • High quality PDR / Appraisals • Coaching and mentoring • Zero agency staff

Healthy • Wellbeing team • Mental health support

• Time To Talk team • Wellbeing spaces • Walking Club • Yoga / meditation • COVID-19 testing

Healthy • Celebration of diversity • Reverse mentoring • Community engagement • Pre-employment support

• Security on site • Reducing stress • No Excuse for Abuse campaign

Heard • Childcare provision • Car parking • Daily mood checker • Monthly Pulse survey

Heard • EDI Council • Culture of compassionate leadership • Inclusion Charter

12

Trust Strategy Summary

Mapping of the Trust People Strategy

Mapping of Trust People Strategy against National People Plan 2020-2021 The following maps the Trust’s People Strategy, Joy At Work, against the key themes within the National People Plan.

Growing for the future

New ways of working & delivering care

Happy • Passports with GST Healthcare Alliance • Partnership with ICP/ICS for joint training and rotations • KentandMedwayMedical Schoolengagement and Health Care Academy • Community relationships to encourage school leavers in the National Health Service

Happy • International recruitment • Retaining staff for longer • Iterative divisional workforce plans to include longer term service changes • System wide working for rotational roles

• System leadership skills • Digital literacy increase • Volunteers • Potential / training at all levels

Healthy • Relationships with education sector to attract leavers to the National Health Service • Healthy staff enabling staff to return to the NHS • Happy staff enabling longer retention

Healthy • Staff feedback to improve safety and security • Community engagement with charities

Heard • Strengthening partnership working with staff side colleagues and unions • Improved equality

Heard • Externally-led training • Embrace Best Practice • Equal opportunities for all

• Less bullying and harassment • Freedom to Speak Up strategy

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Trust Strategy Summary

What our workforce will look like in 5 years

Staff We will ask our staff annually the extent to which they agree with these ‘I’ statements through our internal survey, with the ambition that we can monitor progress against these, and aim to have the majority of staff strongly agreeing with these by 2025. Our staff will feel Joy at Work and say: • I feel like I can be myself at work, I do not have to hide who I am. • I am supported to do my best at work. • I am supported to fulfil my full potential. • I have the option to work more flexibly. • I know that diversity is celebrated at work. • I see diversity in our leadership and management teams. • I am proud to work for the Trust. • I have no barriers in accessing opportunities in education or career development. • I feel able to raise concerns and challenge behaviours that do not align with our values. • My overall health and wellbeing is supported at work.

Patients and organisation The delivery of this strategy will result in patients receiving: • More consistent care from a team that has a low turnover of staff • Care with fewer incidents due to staff feeling happier at work and therefore paying greater attention • Greater provision of care across 7 days Successful implementation of the strategy will also mean that the organisation will see: • Reduction in temporary staffing spend due to a reduction in turnover and lower sick leave levels • Improved productivity as staff have greater flexibility including working from home and working differently • Improved recruitment in hard-to-recruit-to services / posts

14

Trust Strategy Summary

Implementing, monitoring and reporting

Implementing, monitoring delivery and reporting of the strategy The strategy will be delivered through a series of programmes of work, that will report to the appointed lead for the outcome, as set out below:

Happy Lead: Chief People Officer Delivery programme: • Recruitment and retention • Education and training • Opportunities through partnerships

• Workforce design Timescale: 2020-2022

Healthy Lead: Director of Wellbeing Delivery programme: • Wellbeing • Occupational health (including mental health) • Celebration of diversity • Community engagement Timescale: 2020 onwards Heard Lead: Director of Improvement and Chief People Officer Delivery programme: • Shared governance • Equality, diversity and inclusion • Listening to staff Timescale: 2020-2021

Monitoring delivery and reporting of the strategy The programmes will each have a governance structure that includes regular reporting of both progress and issues to the Outcome Lead(s) and the Chief People Officer. Those aspects of the outcomes that do not have programmes of work will have action plans, with milestone dates and leads with appropriate project management governance in place, to ensure smooth and effective delivery of the plans. The Workforce Committee meets bi-monthly. A report detailing the progress on the delivery of the strategy will be provided twice a year. • Programme Leads • Outcome Lead

• Chief People Officer • Workforce Committee • Trust Board

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Trust Strategy Summary

Board the KPIs that will be delivered

Proposed Key Performance Indicator (KPI) All vacancies to have a pipeline and a vacancy rate of below 9%

Joy at Work outcome Monitoring frequency KPI link to Joy at Work outcome

Happy

Monthly

If Dartford and Gravesham Trust achieves local,

If staff feel supported and developed they will report higher quality appraisal/PDP outcomes If we successfully provide holistic health and wellbeing support to all staff, to promote healthy living and provide emotional support, stress related sickness absence will reduce and the mood monitor will demonstrate more consistently happy staff regional and national recognition as the best place to work, we will retain staff and attract staff to our vacancies Our staff will be treated with equality, dignity and respect, leading to a more diverse leadership team transparent culture in which they are listened to through active involvement in decision making (shared governance)- leading Our staff will work in an open and

Achieve turnover below 12% in all areas

Happy

Monthly

Year 1 base line re staff perception of quality of appraisal via Trust Pulse Survey (Year 2 expected improvement) Reduce anxiety related sick leave to below 1.5% Summary of mood monitor outcome from Trust wellbeing app (% completions and break down of happy, neutral, unhappy responses) Representation of BAME staff at senior level to increase in line with WRES target

Happy

Quarterly

Healthy

Monthly

Healthy

Monthly

Heard

Quarterly

Improvement of staff engagement as per Trust pulse survey

Heard

Quarterly

to improved staff engagement levels

17

Trust Strategy Summary

Communicating the strategy

Communicating the strategy and progress of its delivery The communication of the Trust Strategy and supporting strategies, including this People Strategy, will include a roadshow led by the Chief Executive Officer and Executive Team. These will be open to all staff and will be located across Darent Valley, Queen Mary’s, Erith & District and Gravesham Community Hospital on different days of the week, and at different times of the day, including early morning and late evening; this will give as many staff the opportunity to attend as possible. In addition, there will be:

The Chief Executive Officer has a weekly blog and podcast, which is shared with the whole organisation, providing updates and progress against the Trust strategy. Blogs Starting from2020 across the Trust, this is a day free from all Trust meetings where all staff, including the Senior Leadership Team, will be out and about listening to, and talking with, staff. This will be an opportunity for individuals to either meet with leaders in a set place (times will be publicised) or to stop them and talk to them. The feedback from Fridays will be pulled together and ‘you said, we did’ reports sent out monthly. Feedback Fridays There will continue to be a quarterly Celebrating Success event where all staff are welcome to come and chat with members of the Trust Leadership Team. This will also be an opportunity for staff to present posters and displays of the excellent work they have been undertaking. Celebrating Success Events

The Trust Leadership Team meets every Wednesday and divides the 4 weekly meetings into; Quality, Workforce and Education; Finance and Transformation; Performance; and, Strategy. After each weekly Trust Leadership Teammeeting, a member will write a summary of the top few things that were discussed at the meeting, and there will be an opportunity for staff to post comments. Trust Leadership Team (TLT) Members of the Trust Leadership Team will communicate to all staff via social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. Social Media There will be listening posts across both hospitals, and a virtual one on Adagio (our Trust Intranet), where staff can complete a card outlining a suggestion, comment or concern. The feedback from these will be included in the monthly ‘you said, we did’ feedback. Listening Posts There will be a quarterly front line forum for all staff from grades 1-4 where individuals, who otherwise often do not get the opportunity, can come and enjoy a cup of tea and a chat with the Chief Executive Officer. CEO front line Forum

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Trust Strategy Summary

Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust

If you have any questions or comments about this or any other guides please contact a member of the communications team by emailing xxxxxxxxx@xxxxx