- Conference
- 2022 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 6 December 2021
- Decision
- Carried
Everyone knows that the NHS is facing an increasing problem of recruiting and retaining staff. The recommendations on Flexible Working will hopefully do something to alleviate the difficulties in recruiting and retaining people as will hybrid working but these are not the only solutions. The NHS needs to adopt modern working practices and also learn from its own history.
Many people will remember when the NHS ran a pool of staff, who were not allocated to a particular team or workplace. These staff included people who needed to be redeployed, people who liked variety in their work and others. This reserve pool of staff were permanent employees who could be deployed as needed and provided much needed back up for planned long term leave, maternity cover and emergencies. The use of the reserve pool meant there was no need to hire agency staff or use “Bank” staff and if people in the reserve pool were surplus on the day they were deployed to assist teams which meant that teams had some extra hands for a change.
This Conference calls upon the Health Service Committee
1. To promote the Reserve Pool of Staff as part of the future of employment options in the NHS.