Building on focus groups with staff working on the frontline in the sector, as well as with IHPN’s HR forum, the report looks at three key areas that the independent health sector has to ‘offer’ to both current and prospective employers around ‘careers, control and culture’, with key reflections including:
- Significant value and importance is placed on individual employees’ careers and their personal development with substantial funding for learning and development in the sector, and organisations offer a variety of training opportunities to encourage employees to progress professionally.
- The independent health sector is a place where you can simply “get on with the job” with staff feeling they have real ownership over their work, with the ability to make a difference and influence what goes on it their own organisations. This sense of control also enables staff to have a positive work-life balance, with flexibility in how they work.
- Independent healthcare organisation have a ‘family feel’ – whatever their size, independent providers place a strong emphasis on working team-working, with visible leadership and the absence of any “culture of blame”.
The report also looks at how Covid-19 has impacted on working in the independent health sector, and in particular the recent partnership between the NHS and independent hospitals which has seen teams from both the NHS and independent working side by side to enable the delivery of vital NHS treatment throughout the pandemic.
Emily Byatt, Service Manager, Lincolnshire Community Pain Management Service features in the report and discusses how the leadership structure and support available at Connect Health promotes a culture of investment in people and a genuine desired to improve people’s health and wellbeing.
I joined Connect Health in May 2019 and immediately discovered it is such a well-led organisation. I am in awe of the organisation’s structure, IT capability, and the network of leadership. For example, at the Leadership Conference, we saw the senior management team sharing the strategy and working together – the room was buzzing; full of positive energy, ideas and progress. It is the best HR team I’ve ever worked with and there’s so much support on hand. There’s a real can-do attitude – the culture is all about investment in people and focusing on investing in people. There is a genuine desire to improve people’s health and wellbeing – and that applies to staff and patients.
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