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Gosling S.1
1The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, Practice & Development, London, United Kingdom
Background: In 2014, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) recognised limitations in workforce planning in healthcare, particularly in England. Workforce demand was based on presumptions of sufficiency of existing supply, and lacked alignment with service delivery changes. The approach was weakened by a lack of focus on the impact of an increasing, ageing population, with more patients presenting with multiple long-term conditions, and achieving affordable, sustainable care.
Purpose: The CSP pursued a new approach to workforce data modelling (WDM). The purpose was to advocate for the physiotherapy workforce's fulfilment of changing needs and contribute fresh thinking to workforce planning and decision-making. While seeking national influence across the United Kingdom, the WDM tool was also designed to impact on local decision-making in England.
Methods: A project team and contractors were appointed to develop the online tool against a specification; links fostered with relevant external stakeholders; a project steering group formed, comprising CSP and external representatives; and arrangements made to engage CSP members in testing the tool.
Existing datasets relating to population/patient needs, workforce supply, and workforce production through qualifying education were used. While focused on the registered workforce, physiotherapy support workers were explicitly included. This recognised their growing significance for meeting patient care needs in effective, affordable ways - something other approaches to healthcare workforce planning had not done.
Results: The WDM tool was developed, tested and launched to schedule and on budget in 2015. Use of external, publicly-available datasets regarding projections of changing population and patient needs and the triangulation of CSP-held and external datasets on workforce supply enabled the WDM tool to model supply and demand up to 2030.
The tool generated the projection that the registered physiotherapy workforce was at risk of incrementally decreasing relative to patient need unless shortages were addressed, and physiotherapy student places increased by 500 per year up to 2019. While enabling some more nuanced projections, the tool also highlighted data gaps that worked against more precise measures of supply and demand.
Conclusion(s): The WDM tool strengthened the CSPs contribution to debate on workforce planning. It highlighted the limitations of established approaches and datasets, and the need to review how patient needs can safely and effectively be met in a context of growing demand and austerity.
Using the tool strengthened CSP contributions to parliamentary enquiries; enabled the CSP to challenge workforce planning decisions; and increased CSP ability to advocate for the physiotherapy workforces value and return on investment.
Implications: The WDM tool will need to be updated and developed in response to changing policy agendas. Since its creation, approaches to workforce planning have shifted in England, partly as a result of government-announced changes to healthcare education commissioning/funding from 2017/18.
In the context of an open market for physiotherapy education in England, the tool has the potential strengthen CSP input to how workforce supply can match demand and to decision-making on how future population/patient needs can be met. The tool also has the potential to be used for other professions/workforce groups and for physiotherapy in other countries.
Funding acknowledgements: The project was part-funded by the CSP Charitable Trust within the Physiotherapy Works programme, and partly through CSP corporate budgets.
Topic: Professional issues
Ethics approval: Ethics approval was not required for this activity
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
