Examination of Witnesses (Questions 676-679)
MS ANNE
RAINSBERRY, MR
JOHN SARGENT
AND MS
TRISH KNIGHT
14 DECEMBER 2006
Q676 Chairman: Good morning. Could I
welcome you to the evidence session this morning? For the record,
could you give us your names and the positions that you hold?
Ms Rainsberry: Anne Rainsberry,
Director of People and Organisation Development NHS, London.
Ms Knight: Good morning. I am
Trish Knight. I am presently Director of Workforce Development
and Commissioning at Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland
Healthcare Workforce Deanery.
Mr Sargent: My name is John Sargent.
I am currently working as a Workforce Development Consultant and
I was formerly Chief Executive of Greater Manchester WDC.
Q677 Chairman: Welcome to what is
now the sixth session in our inquiry into workforce planning.
We have had bit of a gap, recently which was filled with the deficits
inquiry that has now been published. I wonder if I could start
by asking some general questions about the organisation of NHS
workforce planning. Regional Workforce Development Confederations
were created in 2001, following the Committee's last inquiry into
workforce planning. In 2004 WDCs were merged with Strategic Health
Authorities. Why did this happen and what has been the effect
of this merger on workforce planning?
Mr Sargent: The changes that took
place in 2001 was the first time there had really been a focus
on workforce development and workforce planning in a co-ordinated
way, not least because workforce planning was always seen as a
bit of a back-office function that was not taken seriously enough
in many people's minds, especially those of us who believed in
WDCs. A lot of progress was then made between 2001 and 2004, but
what happened was that, almost just as WDCs were starting to get
on their feet, there was another reorganisation, this time the
one that created, not the current wave, but the previous wave,
the 28 Strategic Health Authorities, who had almost identical
footprints across the country WDCs. (There were 27 and then 28.)
The background to this was that the SHA Chief Executives, through
their meetings with the Chief Executive of the NHS, felt that
it would be more appropriate if the SHA and WDCs were merged so
that there could be one strategic perspective for all functions
across the new SHAs areas, and that, of course, has evolved into
the 10 SHAs very recently.
Q678 Chairman: How many jobs were
lost when this merger took place? What kind of skills were lost?
Has there been any replacement of those skills?
Ms Rainsberry: Is this the change
when the WDC—
Q679 Chairman: Yes.
Ms Rainsberry: In London very
few were lost at that time because, when we formed the 28 Strategic
Health Authorities, there was also reorganisation of the Primary
Care Trusts that preceded the current one and, therefore, effectively,
there was a degree of job creation at that stage; so skills were
redistributed rather than lost. Obviously, under the current reorganisation
that is slightly different.
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